PGA TOUR

While We’re Young (Ideas) on Ryder Cup, Best/Worst of NFL

By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – The Opening Ceremony of the 2023 Ryder Cup will take place this Thursday at 10:00am ET. The foursomes and four-ball competition starts this Friday, September 29th with first tee time at 1:35 AM (ET) and the Ryder Cup will be presented to the winning team on Sunday, Oct 1, 2023 – a week from today.

TV coverage of the biennial match play golf tournament will be provided by a combination of USA Network and its parent company, NBC Sports. Streaming is available via NBC’s Peacock Network and the Ryder Cup (www.rydercup.com) and the Ryder Cup app.

The TEAMS:

🇺🇸 The visiting USA Team will feature:

• Scottie Scheffler
• Wyndham Clark
• Patrick Cantlay
• Brian Harman
• Max Homa
• Xander Schaufele
• Sam Burns
• Rickie Fowler
• Brooks Koepka
• Collin Morakawa
• Jordan Spieth
• Justin Thomas
• Captain: Zach Johnson

🇪🇺 The European host team will feature:

• Rory McIlroy
• Jon Rahm
• Viktor Hovland
• Tyrrell Hatton
• Matt Fitzpatrick
• Robert MacIntyre
• Justin Rose
• Tommy Fleetwood
• Shane Lowry
• Ludvig Aberg
• Sepp Straka
• Nicolai Hojgaard
• Captain: Luke Donald

FUN FACTS: The USA has NOT won on European soil since 1993 at The Belfry. … In 2021, the USA won the Ryder Cup at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits, marking a record of a 10-point victory, the largest since the USA and Europe (not the UK) squared off in 1979. … The USA has No. 1 rankedScottie Scheffler but Europe can claim No. 2-5 with N. Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, Spain’s Jon Rahm and Norway’s Viktor Hovland. … If you place Hovland at the No. 1 slot because of his 2023 FedEx Cup victory and Erling Haaland as the No. 1 footballer in the world, playing for Man City, you’ll note Norway has the top two athloetes in teh world. Add Germany as the FIBA World Cup champion, and Serbia’s Nikola Jokić of the Denver Nuggets as the MVP of the NBA Finals, you get the picture on the marvelous results being registered by European athletes.

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: After this weekend’s three game set with the Chicago White Sox, the Boston Red Sox will have only two more games at Fenway Park before the turf plays host to some Thanksgiving high school football games. The Red Sox face the Tampa Bay Rays (2 games) and the Baltimore Orioles (4-games at Camden Yards) to close out the year against two of the American League’s very best.

Saturday, September 23rd, also known as Week 4 of the College Football season, is really Game 1 for a lot of teams as they face conference competition across the nation. There’s some great non-Conference battles, too, as in Ohio State playing Notre Dame in South Bend.

The “Instant Classic” of the weekend was the Florida State at Clemsongame, won by Florida St., 31-24 in overtime.

There were so many great college football games on TV that my remote threatened to join the United Auto Workers’ picket lines. … The remote was so worn out that it asked for seven days off and an all expenses paid vacation trip to Aruba. … There were so many great games going on at the same time that a friend in New York City walked 8,700 steps as he went from screen-to-screen inside a Sports Bar.

The losers in the deal? How about LIV Golf, being televised by the CW Network facing big-time college football comp on ABC, CBS, ESPN and ESPN2 and everything on ESPN+, FOX, the ACC Network, the Big Ten Network, CBS Sports Net, and so on.

Wouldn’t LIV Golf be better off basing its September tournaments in Europe where they could play to an early morning audience in the USA, say 7:00am to 11:00am ET?

THE BEST AND WORST OF THE NFL: Frequently, there are despicable acts of violence by NFL fans at stadiums across the country. This week? It was too much as a fan in Buffalo was apprehended as the USA Todayheadline read: An unidentified football fan who was naked and “covered in human excrement” was discovered in a construction site hole near the Buffalo Bills home opener on Sunday. The extent of his injuries was a cut on his forehead.

Believe it or not, it got worse. Much worse.

Dale Mooney, a 53-year-old New England Patriots’ fan and New Hampshire resident, fell unconscious in the fourth quarter of New England’s Sunday Night Football game against the Miami Dolphins, falling unconscious in the upper deck of Gillette Stadium in Foxborough and could not be revived.

He was punched by a Miami Dolphins fan and fell down, witnesses said, but the blow might not have been the cause of Mooney’s death.

“Preliminary autopsy results did not suggest traumatic injury, but did identify a medical issue,” according to a statement Wednesday from the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office. “Cause and manner of death remain undetermined pending further testing.”

The fact of the matter is that a drunken Patriots fan jawed throughout the game and then confronted a rival Miami supporter. There’s been no formal or final determination by the authorities and the incident remains under investigation.

The incidents this week prompt a listing of the worst fans (and best fans) in the NFL:

WORST FANS:

Worst – J.E.T.S. – Jets, Jets, Jets ✈️

2nd – J.E.T.S. – Jets, Jets, Jets ✈️

3rd – J.E.T.S. – Jets, Jets, Jets ✈️

That’s no typo!

4. Eagles 🦅

5. Raiders 🍂

6. Dolphins 🐬

7. Cowboys 🤠

8. Patriots 🇬🇧 —> 🇺🇸

9. Bengals 🐅 (lethargic/front runners)

10. Steelers ⚒️

BEST and MOST LOYAL NFL FANS:

1. Packers

2. Giants

3. Bills

4. Da Bears

5. Broncos

6. Cowboys

7. Seahawks

8. Chiefs

9. DC Commanders

10. Lions

TIDBITS: While We’re Young (Ideas) is NOT a gossip column. It’s not Page 6. It’s not even TMZ. But, the Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce dating “thing” is just too much to let pass by without mention. Rumors began circulating that Kelce and Swift were dating weeks ago, about the time Kelce suffered a bone bruise in practice two days before the Chiefs’ 21-20 season-opening loss to the Detroit Lions.

Kelce missed that game – his first DNP since 2013 – but returned for NFL Week 2 when he scored a touchdown in a 17-9 road win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

While Kelce and Swift have remained silent, friends of Swift and the brother of Kelce have been feeding the frenzy.

“It’s hilarious how much traction this has gotten,” said Jason Kelce, the KC tight end’s brother. “Right now, it’s like that old game in school called ‘telephone’ where everyone is whispering in everyone’s ear and hearing random stuff. No one actually knows what’s going on, especially when you’ve got Jason Kelce on live television telling people both sides … The guy can’t stay out of the frickin’ headlines.”

“I try to keep his business kind of his business, stay out of that world. But having said that, I think he’s doing great, and I think it’s all 100% true,” J. Kelce added.

Sources with a Swift insider resume also broke silence and commented on her behalf.

“She and Travis have hung out twice, and it’s nothing serious. She thinks he is very charming, and they have been texting this last week,” said the Swifty exclusively to The Messenger. “He is a little embarrassed at how much attention they are getting, but he has told her he would love to continue seeing her.”

“They are seeing where things go.” However, the football star has some stiff competition for the singer’s attention. “Her friends are always playfully suggesting people to set her up with,” the source continues.

Calling Tom Brady?

Nah.

SOCCER HUB: The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) announced that Boston was awarded expansion rights for the league’s 15th team. Boston Unity Soccer Partners (BUSC), an all-female core ownership group led by a diverse and dynamic leadership team, will head-up the venture. The new club is set to kick-off in the 2026 season, bringing world-class women’s soccer back to the country’s No. 9 media market to play in a region with a championship legacy for a fan base that has earned a reputation as one of the most passionate in all of sports.

The announcement follows the addition of two other NWSL expansion teams earlier this year, Utah Royals FC and Bay Area FC, which are both slated to begin play in 2024.

RIP DENNIS D’AGOSTINO: A week after writing a memorial tribute to the NBA’s Bruni Gill, it’s another sad day to recognize the sudden passing of New York Mets, New York Knicks and our NBA Finals/All-Star Game media relations cohort Dennis D’Agostino. … Dennis’ upbeat attitude, a hard work ethic to always get the job done right and a unique personality and sense of humor that was loved and appreciated by everyone he came in contact with over his many years in sports. D’Agostino most recently re-located from his native New York (Whitestone) by way of Fordham University in the Bronx to Los Angeles where he and his bride, Helene Elliott of the LA Times, enjoyed their lives together in a grand way. … This columnist has fond memories of D’Agostino at the Mets, Knicks and at LA Dodgers games but also from the many New York Knicks media trips to Saratoga Race Course. Etched in my mind is the day he inserted a VHS tape of “Day at the Races” – the Marx Brothers’ classic – into a player for a long bus ride from The Garden to Saratoga Race Course for a summertime Knicks’ media outing! … We laughed and laughed and -zip – we were in Saratoga! D’Agostino’s memorial service will be held in New Jersey on September 30.

PARTING WORDS AND MUSIC: While considering a post highlighting the recent stadium concerts performed by Taylor Swift, there’s absolutely no chance this week’s column isn’t going to plug the “Garden-to-Garden” pair of concerts by the Tedeschi Trucks Band to be played this week.

We’ll start off at TD Boston Garden on Wednesday, September 27 and conclude Friday, September 29 at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the World’s Most Famous Arena.

Derek Trucks’ cohort as lead guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band, Warren Haynes, will sit-in at the Boston show, while Phish phenom Trey Anastasioand Norah Jones will each make appearances with TTB at NYC’s Garden.

It’ll be great.

Here’s a sampling of the Tedeschi Trucks Band doing “Anyhow” and Blind Willie McTell’s “Statesboro Blues,” performed at the most beautiful, striking and astonishing concert venues in the world, at Red Rocks outside of Denver, Colorado.

While We’re Young (Ideas) is a weekly Sunday Sports Notebook and news column written by Terry Lyons. The posting of each notebook harkens back to the days when you’d walk over to the city news stand on Saturday night around 10pm to pick-up a copy of the Sunday papers. Inside, just waiting, was a sports-filled compilation of interesting notes, quotes and quips.

TL’s Sunday Sports Notes is brought to you by Digital Sports Desk.