Sergio García warned after breaking club in Masters meltdown before carrying Jon Rahm’s bag
A winner on day four of the Masters was not even part of the remaining field.Robert MacIntyre, somewhere, surely raised a smile.The Scot was the recipient of widespread criticism on Thursday after offering a single-fingered salute to Augusta National when en route to a nine at the 15th.A range of expletives and a whack of the sacred turf also featured in his first round.MacIntyre’s passionate approach to his profession is admirable but this was all over the top.
In time, he will surely realise as much,“Hold my beer,” said Sergio García to MacIntyre on day four,The Spaniard had only reached the 2nd tee when the finding of a bunker triggered an outburst,García slammed the grass twice in anger – it had to be repaired by Masters greenkeepers before whacking his driver against a water cooler,The club snapped, meaning García had to play his remaining 16 holes without it.
Such tantrums do not sit at all well with those at the most prestigious club in the United States,García was spoken to by a Masters official on the 4th hole,Under Augusta’s new approach, a warning is followed by a two-shot penalty and subsequent disqualification if any player is silly enough to lose the plot three times,Yet if Augusta was looking for remorse from García, it did not really arrive,“Just obviously not super-proud of it, but sometimes it happens,” he said.
García reflected on frustrations “throughout the year” rather than only in this major.“It’s fine, it’s what it is,” García added.“You’ve just got to deal with it.”Adding to a comedic scene was the image of García carrying the bag of his playing partner, Jon Rahm, elsewhere on the 2nd.“Adam [Hayes, Rahm’s caddie] stopped to rake my bunker,” García explained.
“Benji, my caddie, was carrying both bags so I told him: ‘Just put it down, I’ll get it so you can go and get a yardage,’ Just as simple as that,” This had been a light moment that García managed to describe in a tone which implied a death was involved,García was asked about the content of his conversation on the 4th,“I’m not going to tell you,” he said.
Pressed further on the same situation, he replied: “Next question, please.”García’s relationship with Augusta is a complicated one.He was an audible critic of the venue in the early stages of his career but won his solitary major here amid emotional scenes in 2017.It is the ending of that drought that renders subsequent events – including in this tournament – so strange.García should be at peace with the Masters by now.
Instead, he must fear his career is in inexorable decline at the age of 46.Since that Augusta triumph nine years ago he is without a major top 10.He has made just two Masters cuts, including this one, where he finished on the lower regions of theleaderboard at eight over par.In keeping with his dark mood – the golfer looked as if he would rather be at the dentist – García was unwilling to expand on the cause of his post-2017 Masters struggles.“Bad golf,” he said.
“Bad shots.“If you don’t hit good shots, you’re not going to score well here.It’s very simple.Unfortunately a lot of bad shots.” It feels a shame to see García, one of the standout players of his generation, in this state.
Rahm expressed sympathy for his compatriot.“Obviously he hasn’t been swinging it the way he would like,” Rahm said.“It wasn’t the easiest day for him so there is not much I can say.I talked to him when I could to lift his spirits up a little bit.But it felt like I was exactly where he was at today the last few days so I can’t really say much.
” Indeed, Rahm’s aggregate plus one finish was curious.“Definitely some things I’m going change,” Rahm said.“Preparation-wise and what to do.But it’s hard to say how much I learned because I don’t think we ever seen a Masters this firm and I don’t know how long it is going to be until we do again.Off the tee and on the greens.
“Have you ever seen looking down the property how yellow the patron areas and how brown and purple parts of the greens and fairways are? It will be a long time until we see it like this,Definitely have some things in mind for future editions where it gets to this level,”Keegan Bradley signed off with an excellent 66 for a three-under-par total,Viktor Hovland’s 67 ensured the Norwegian closed at minus four just as the leading groups set out,
Oil price tops $100 a barrel as US blockades strait of Hormuz; Goldman Sachs posts rise in profits – as it happened
Time to wrap up…Oil prices have jumped back above $100 a barrel and global stocks fell after weekend talks between the US and Iran ended without an agreement and Donald Trump imposed a blockade of the strait of Hormuz.The US president announced the blockade on Sunday, targeting Iranian vessels and ships that have paid a toll to Iran for passage through the strait, in an attempt to choke off the flow of Iranian oil.US Central Command said it would start blocking all Iranian Gulf ports and coastal areas from 3pm UK time, in effect seizing control of maritime traffic in the strait of Hormuz.Trump said on Monday afternoon that ships coming near the blockade would be “eliminated”, warning Iran not to send its “fast attack ships”:double quotation markWarning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal
Oil prices top $100 a barrel after talks fail and Trump orders Hormuz blockade
Oil prices jumped back above $100 a barrel and global stocks fell after weekend talks between the US and Iran ended without an agreement and Donald Trump imposed a blockade of the strait of Hormuz.The US president said on Sunday the blockade would target Iranian vessels and ships that have paid a toll to Iran for passage through the strait, in an attempt to choke off the flow of Iranian oil.US Central Command said it would start at 10am ET (5.30pm in Iran and 3pm in the UK) blocking all Iranian Gulf ports and coastal areas, in effect seizing control of maritime traffic in the strait of Hormuz.Trump said on Monday afternoon that ships coming near the blockade would be “eliminated”
Meta creating AI version of Mark Zuckerberg so staff can talk to the boss
If you are one of Meta’s almost 79,000 employees and cannot get hold of the boss, do not worry. The owner of Facebook and Instagram is reportedly working on an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg who can answer all your queries.The AI clone of Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and chief executive, is being trained on his mannerisms and tone as well as his public statements and thoughts on company strategy.The rationale behind the project, according to the Financial Times, is that employees could feel more connected to one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley.The Meta chief has a history of creating and experimenting with digitalised versions of himself
Elon Musk’s X cuts payments to users who post clickbait
Elon Musk’s X has reduced payments to users who post clickbait and recycle news stories as it warned account holders against “flooding the timeline” with low-quality content.Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, wrote on the social media platform that all “aggregators” – users who quickly repackage and repost news from other accounts – had received less money from the creator revenue sharing programme.Under the scheme, X gives a share of advertising revenue to creators who have at least 500 verified followers and generate at least 5m views over a three-month period. Bier wrote that aggregators had their payouts reduced by 60% and that total will be reduced by a further 20%.“It became abundantly clear: flooding the timeline with 100 stolen reposts and clickbait everyday crowded out real creators and hurt new author growth,” he wrote
Surrey v Leicestershire, Notts v Glamorgan, and more: county cricket, day four – live
Kevin Howells says there will be play at Canterbury…Handshakes at The Oval.The Oval: Surrey 520 and 263-4 DRAW with Leicestershire 691Surrey 14 points;Leicestershire 15 pointsAnd then there were two. Canterbury, where its raining; and The Oval where its not.A pitch inspection due at Canterbury at 4.45, which is about when they’ll shake hands at The Oval, Surrey 234-5, Pope 69 not out
Key gambling reform campaigner calls for pause to controversial affordability checks
Dr James Noyes, one of the key early advocates of affordability checks for online gamblers, has joined calls for Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, to instruct the Gambling Commission to pause the implementation of checks “until there has been adequate evaluation and scrutiny” of a pilot scheme to assess how checks might work in practice.Noyes’s intervention in the long-running debate over affordability checks comes in an open letter sent to Nandy on Monday. It echoes similar calls for a halt to the process by many senior figures in the racing industry, which fears a disproportionate effect on racing bettors with the potential to cost the industry tens of millions of pounds in income if punters refuse to supply financial information to gambling operators and switch to the black market instead.Noyes says in his letter that while affordability checks were “a worthy idea in principle” when first proposed in 2020, his call for checks was made on the basis “a gambling ombudsman would be created to ensure proper treatment of consumer redress and rights”, “checks would be non-intrusive” and “while preventing serious cases of harm from happening, they would not impede the majority of gamblers from engaging in a lawful activity which involves inherent risk, economic agency and their own money”.Noyes, a senior fellow of the Social Market Foundation (SMF) thinktank, argued for the introduction of affordability checks in their reports published in 2020 and 2021 and a number of his proposals were included in a government white paper on gambling reform, which was published in April 2023
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