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Archives for March 8, 2023

Duke’s Brown Wins Media Award

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INDIANAPOLIS – (Staff Report from Official Press Release) – In recognition of his long service to the game of women’s basketball, Duke’s Lindy Brown has been named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Mary Jo Haverbeck Award winner for 2023. He will be presented the award at the Final Four in Dallas.

Brown joined the Duke communications office in November 1999 and rose to Senior Associate Director of Sports Communications, currently overseeing women’s soccer, women’s tennis and women’s golf. In 2019, Brown received the CoSIDA Achievement Award for the University Division and has been honored multiple times for his women’s basketball media guides. He has been part of multiple women’s sports championships and achievements at Duke, including three women’s basketball Final Four appearances (2002, ’03 and ’06).

“Nobody worked harder to promote and elevate Duke women’s basketball than Lindy, whose knack for spotting and pitching good stories made it an easy program to cover,” said USBWA president Luke DeCock, a sports columnist for the (Raleigh) News & Observer. “The fact that he for many years organized the annual media basketball game at Cameron is entirely incidental.”

A 1996 graduate from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C., Brown received a Bachelor of Science degree in sport management and worked in the sports information office during college. Before joining Duke, he served as the Sports Information Director and Marketing and Promotions Coordinator for the University of South Carolina Aiken. Brown resides in his hometown of Raleigh with his wife Christine and their two children, Jordan and Olivia.

The award is presented annually and named after the late Mary Jo Haverbeck, the longtime women’s sports communications director at Penn State who passed away in January 2014. The award pays tribute to Haverbeck for her pioneering and visionary work among the first women to work in the sports communication profession.

The USBWA was formed in 1956 at the urging of then-NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers. With some 900 members worldwide, it is one of the most influential organizations in college basketball.

PGA Tour: The PLAYERS Preview

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By TERRY LYONS

PONTE VEDRA BEACH – THE PLAYERS Championship is the first of five events during the 2023 season offering 600 FedExCup points to the winner. It joins the four major championships. The field this weekend includes 44 of the Top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking and 29 of the Top 30 players in the FedExCup standings.

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This is the 49th playing of THE PLAYERS Championship and 41st since the tournament moved to TPC Sawgrass in 1982. The purse is $25 million and the winner’s share of $4.5 million are the largest in PGA TOUR history.

With three wins this season (Sentry Tournament of Champions, The American Express, The Genesis Invitational), Jon Rahm currently holds the No. 1 position in both the FedExCup standings and the Official World Golf Ranking. He is the third player (fourth instance) to enter THE PLAYERS as the FedExCup leader and World No. 1 (second consecutive year competing at THE PLAYERS as World No. 1). Rahm has one Top-10 (T-9/2021) and has not missed the cut in five previous starts at THE PLAYERS.

Reigning PGA Tour Player of the Year Scottie Scheffler is making his third start at THE PLAYERS Championship (MC/2021, T-55/2022). Scheffler successfully defended his title at the WM Phoenix Open in February and finished T-4 in his second attempt to do so at last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. Scheffler will also be the defending champion at two tournaments in the four weeks following THE PLAYERS (WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Masters Tournament). Scheffler leads the PGA TOUR in Greens in Regulation Percentage (73.61%).

The 2019 winner and reigning FedExCup Champion Rory McIlroy finished runner-up at last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, his second Top-Two result in four starts this season (Won/THE CJ CUP in South Carolina). McIlroy made his tournament debut in 2009 (MC), which was his eighth career start on the Tour, and has four Top-10s in 12 starts at the event.