Make or Break’s behind-the-scenes look at the World Surf League engages fans and non-fans alike even if some hard questions remain ignoredThere is a moment early in the first episode of Make or Break, a new series from Apple TV+ about the World Surf League, when Tyler Wright neatly encapsulates the tension at the heart of professional surfing. “We come from a sport of, ‘aww we’re hippies’,” says the Australian surfer, a two-time WSL champion. “We’re not. We’re competitive little assholes.”Surfing has long grappled with this bipolar identity; a sport initially beloved by the counter-culture movement that grew popular, some would say too popular, on the back of booming commercial and competitive success. Make or Break, an entertaining seven-part series,...
Woods ranks playing four rounds at Augusta as one of his greatest achievements and confirmed he will be at St AndrewsThe look on Tiger Woods’s face as he walked off the 18th green told you all you need to know about what he’s been through in the last 14 months.Woods had just shot his second consecutive round of 78, which is the worst score he’s ever made in the 24 years he’s been playing here, and done it on a day that seemed tailor-made for going low. The round left him 13 over par for the tournament, and 22 shots off Scottie Scheffler’s lead, in 47th place. And despite it all, he was grinning like he’d just won the tournament....
Northern Irishman still attracts galleries at Augusta but has now adjusted his sights to a top-10 finish going into final day“I feel like I’m right there,” said Rory McIlroy on Friday night, as he weighed his chances after back‑to‑back rounds of 73 on Thursday and Friday. “You go out tomorrow and you play a decent front nine, and all of a sudden you’re right in the thick of things.” Seventeen hours later, he stepped out on to the 1st tee and, thwack, dumped his opening drive right into a fairway bunker, then, crack, whacked his second shot into the lip where it rebounded and fell back down by his feet. His third made it on to the green, where he...
Golf’s greatest showman shows he is ready to compete against all odds after a solid if mostly unspectacular start There were about 50,000 people at Augusta National for the start of the Masters: fans, media, members, stewards, caddies, cooks, camera crew and all the other support staff, and on Thursday morning almost every last one of them was asking the same sort of question. Plenty had come along to the 1st tee at 11am to find out the answer, too. The dogged ones had staked a front-row spot first thing that morning. Everyone else was craning their necks and popping up on their tiptoes, jockeying to try to find a line of sight that would allow them to catch a...
US hasn’t always been a happy hunting ground, but the sport’s growing popularity gives cause for confidenceFormula One returns to Australia this weekend after a two-year absence since the sport’s blase attitude toward the oncoming pandemic left it reeling when the meeting in Melbourne fell apart. Mismanagement and hubris had brought F1 low but, finally back at Albert Park, it could not be in ruder health.F1’s insistence on pushing on with holding the race was wildly over-ambitious, up to and including allowing fans to turn up at the gates, only not to be admitted as the event was called off with Covid cases among the teams. That weekend was a nadir for F1’s owners and the FIA. But the recovery...