BY DC CUEVA
This is a busy weekend in the sports world this last week of September: Chelsea vs Liverpool and Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid headlined today's European soccer, with Daniel Sturridge netting a goal of the year candidate in the former. It's championship weekend down in Australia: the West Coast Eagles beat the Collingwood Magpies and American born Mason Cox to claim Aussie Rules Football premiership, and later Sydney faces Melbourne for the title in Australian Rugby League.
Here at home, Penn State has just defeated Ohio State in a game fueled by a tweet gone wrong earlier, while the Steelers & Ravens highlight Sunday's NFL action. It's also the last weekend of baseball's regular season with NL division & wild card races and a Yanks/Red Sox playoff preview just before the postseason is set. There's also the NASCAR Playoffs taking to a new road course in Charlotte, and preseason action in the NBA starting and the NHL too.
The Ryder Cup is taking place in Paris, where Tiger has joined America's top golfers to face the best Europe has to offer in the always intense and spine-tingling drama of match play. Those who watch every other autumn know about the drama of these teams playing not for themselves, but for their nations in the purest form the game of golf has, where every hole is a tournament in itself - and it's of how many holes a player/team can win, not by total strokes, that determines who wins.
While The Masters in Augusta each spring is the most serene setting for any golf tournament, the Ryder Cup is the total opposite. Galleries come out in droves wearing either European blue or American red, while they actually cheer for an opponent's missed shot. And at times, the Ryder Cup can be described as a mix of a golf tournament, an Olympic event in displays of patriotism, a college football game in the emotions of the competitors, and European soccer in the way of atmosphere.
Through two days of four-ball and four-some matches in the morning and afternoon, Team USA went off to an early 3-1 lead after the first session of better-ball. But ever since, the Europeans have taken control in its specialty of alternate shot: it took all four matches on Friday afternoon, three four-ball rounds earlier this morning and two after lunch. British Open champ Francesco Molinari and partner Tommy Fleetwood took down Tiger not one, but three times in leading an underdog European side.
The score stands at Europe leading the U.S., 10-6, with a dozen singles matches to take place tomorrow to decide whether Europe will regain the dominance they've enjoyed in the competition the past quarter-century or if the Cup will somehow stay in American control. But that Saturday night score is a jinx: two times a team has been down by that 10-6 margin after the two days of team play and then manage to come back in the Sunday heads-up matches to win: the U.S. did it on home soil in Boston in 1999, then Europe coming back in Chicago in 2012.
For the link between the Ryder Cup and MTV, Paulie, Angela and Faith are on The Challenge by way of being on the 1st American season of Ex On The Beach earlier this year - and for which Season 2 is filming right now. Another person who lived in that Hawaiian house as them, Derrick H. and one who will become more of a household name next week in Cory, was Bachelorette contestant Chase McNary. The one who got rejected by JoJo Fletcher just before the final rose got to do the same thing in rejecting a crush lei from fellow original Victoria during the season finale.Shortly after that, Chase flew across the Atlantic to France for a summer vacation in mid-July that, by luck, coincided with a historic weekend: the national holiday of Bastille Day on July 14th, followed by the French national team winning the FIFA World Cup. Amidst Les Bleus mania, he took to the same course that is hosting this year's Ryder Cup: Le Golf National, joining competitors from The Golf Channel's Shotmakers series to play a round on the same course as the one the world is watching this weekend, just before workers erected the grandstands and structures.
Below, Chase decides to show off his American pride by dropping his pants and hitting a tee shot wearing those American boxers. Think, the same thing we saw with Codi from Floribama Shore showing his American love by taking off his pants and twerking with his Stars & Stripes underwear, this time translating itself to golf and to someone who, as we wrote in our Ex On The Beach - Newbies article, has that sense of humor too in hitting a golf ball with just wearing an American flag and Tiger's Sunday red.
- I AM DC
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