Форум новостроек Москвы и Подмосковья

HOYLAKE, England -- The British Open packs 154 years of history on links courses that have been nurtured more by time than by tractors. It returns this year to Royal Liverpool, the second-oldest golf club in England, established in 1867 before anyone in America knew much about the Royal & Ancient game. For all its heritage, however, the charm of this major is what lies ahead. No one ever knows what to expect. Consider the landscape. Royal Liverpool was so brown and baked when The Open was last here in 2006 that the R&A asked players to take extra care if they smoked, and it had two fire engines stationed on the golf course. The ball rolled so far when it hit the ground that Tiger Woods hit only one driver over 72 holes and won by two shots. Now the grass is greener than it was at Pinehurst No. 2 for the U.S. Open. It feels like a new course this year. "Its lush. The greens are soft and very green. Fairways are pretty similar," said Rory McIlroy, who took a scouting trip to Hoylake last week. "But I think they are going to get a spell of good weather leading up to The Open, and hopefully, it will get a bit firmer." He recalled watching in 2006 when "the ball was like bouncing down a road on the fairways." McIlroy says he could hit as many as five drivers each round. "Its going to be a little different," he said. "Theres some thick spots of rough on the course, so avoiding that and avoiding those fairway bunkers ... if I can just do that, and anyone else can do that, then theyll have a good chance." A greater change might be the landscape of golf. Woods was at the height of his powers eight years ago when he won the claret jug for the third time. He was the first player in more than 20 years to repeat as Open champion. He would go on to win the PGA Championship that year, making history as the only player to capture multiple majors in successive years. Now he makes news when he can even play in a major. Woods has had three surgeries since he was last at Royal Liverpool a(euro)? two on his left knee, the most recent on March 31 to alleviate a nerve impingement in his back, which caused him to miss the Masters for the first time, and then the U.S. Open. When the British Open begins on Thursday, it will be his first major in 11 months. Woods returned earlier than anyone thought a(euro)? himself included a(euro)? three weeks ago in the Quicken Loans National at Congressional. He missed the cut, which annoyed him, and played without pain, which thrilled him. "I hate to say it, but Im really encouraged by what happened this week," Wood said. "What I was able to do physically, and the speed I had and the distance that I was hitting the golf ball again, I had not done that in a very long time." He wasnt worried about the little mistakes, mainly with his short game, because he could fix them. But how soon? Woods is 38 and without a major in six years, leaving him at 14 for his career and still four short of catching Jack Nicklaus. It might help to return to a course where he has won before, except that this is a different golf course. And he is not the same player. "We havent seen Tiger really, really play well in a while now," two-time U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange said. There hasnt been a dominant player even during his time away from various injuries and surgeries over the last five years. Golf is ruled by committee. McIlroy, with two majors by age 23, is just now starting to get his game back in order. Martin Kaymer is in the best form, having won The Players Championship and U.S. Open by going wire-to-wire in both. Adam Scott is No. 1 in the world. Phil Mickelson is the defending champion. Justin Rose is fresh off a big win at Congressional. Bubba Watson is a Masters champion again. All have had moments of greatness, none of it sustained. Nineteen players have won the 24 majors that have been held since Woods won his last one. "We have all witnessed what Tiger has been able to do over his career, whether thats come back from injury and win, come back from any sort of off-course stuff and win. I mean, win the U.S. Open on one leg," McIlroy said. "Is it foolish for people to write him off? I would say so. If hes playing and hes competing, hes got as good a chance as any." Considering the circumstances, Woods winning would be a surprise. Then again, for as long as golfs oldest championship has been around, it is still capable of delivering a few shockers. Mickelson produced one of his own at Muirfield last summer when he had his named etched on that silver claret jug for winning the one major that for years befuddled him. Only five years ago, 59-year-old Tom Watson came within an 8-foot par putt of being the oldest major champion. Ben Curtis was playing his first major in 2003 when he won at Royal St. Georges. He was the only player to break par. The Open returned to St. Georges eight years later, and 11 players had a better score than Curtis. What happened eight years ago at Royal Liverpool feels like ancient history. Perhaps that should be the adage for The Open. The more things stay the same, the more they change. Зарегистрируйтесь, чтобы увидеть ссылку! . Moments after his Brooklyn Nets teammates ran out onto the court to congratulate him following their 100-98 overtime win over the Phoenix Suns on Friday night, Johnson could only shake his head at scoring only 13 points on 6-of-19 shooting. Зарегистрируйтесь, чтобы увидеть ссылку! . Bryant, who signed a five-year, $34 million contract as a free agent with Cleveland in March, reported symptoms on Monday morning, a team spokesman said. Зарегистрируйтесь, чтобы увидеть ссылку!. And former Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson certainly knows his pain. "Its pretty hard to coach there without allowing some of these things to kind of affect you," Wilson told TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun in his ESPN. Зарегистрируйтесь, чтобы увидеть ссылку! . Hamels threw seven sharp innings to earn his 100th career victory, Domonic Brown had a career-best five RBIs and the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds 12-1 on Saturday night to end a four-game losing streak. Зарегистрируйтесь, чтобы увидеть ссылку! . Even that couldnt slow them down against the New Orleans Hornets. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook scored 31 points apiece and the Thunder overcame injuries to two key backups to beat New Orleans 101-93 Monday night for their 10th straight home win.If there’s an individual skill that really remains underutilized by analysts and fans right now, it’s the ability of a player to draw penalties for his respective team. While the vast majority of a hockey game is played at even-strength, there is still a swath of goals scored on special teams. Getting your team into that position, of course, has value. Most importantly, drawing penalties has been identified as something of a repeatable talent, meaning that players who exhibit ability to consistently draw penalties will likely continue to do so. Broad Street Hockey investigated this in great detail in 2013, and concluded that drawing penalties is a “real talent that a player possesses”. The one caveat to drawing penalties as it pertains to goal differentials (and, ultimately, adding wins to the standings) is that the inverse is also true – players who take a lot of penalties cost their team valuable goals. So, drawing penalties has value, but it’s only valuable to the extent that the player does not give those penalties back in the form of penalties against. Let’s try and identify some of the league’s best and worst players on this front. For the sake of this article, we’ll limit our focus to the forward position for all regular skaters 2011-Present. We will pull each player’s total number of penalties drawn, and each player’s total number of penalties taken. Here’s our top-ten, sorted by differential: FORWARD PENALTY DIFFERENTIAL LEADERS SINCE 2011 PLAYER TEAM PEN. DRAWN PEN. TAKEN DIFFERENTIAL Jeff Skinner Carolina 97 30 +67 Dustin Brown Los Angeles 102 39 +63 Nazem Kadri Toronto 85 34 +51 Matt Duchene Colorado 57 12 +45 Darren Helm Detroit 50 8 +42 Mikkel Boedker Arizona 55 14 +41 Martin St. Louis N.Y. Rangers 54 14 +40 John Tavares N.Y. Islanders 68 30 +38 Vladimir Tarasenko St. Louis 48 11 +37 Patric Hornqvist Pittsburgh 55 18 +37 Those are some massively favourable numbers, even accounting for the fact that the sample spans multiple years. But, maybe there’s a better way to capture the impact the player is having. What if we substituted penalties drawn for goals added (simply by multiplying total number of goals and power-play conversion rate, which sits at 18%), and then doing the same for goals added? PENALTY DIFFERENTIAL AS GOAL VALUE, 2011-PRESENT PLAYER TEAM EST. GOALS ADDED EST. GOALS AGAINST DIFFERENTIAL Jeff Skinner Carolina 17.5 5.4 +12.1 Dustin Brown Los Angeles 18.4 7.0 +11.3 Nazem Kadri Toronto 15.3 6.1 +9.2 Matt Duchene Colorado 10.3 2.2 +8.1 Darren Helm Detroit 9.0 1.4 +7.6 Mikkel Boedker Arizona 9.9 2.5 +7.4 Martin St. Louis N.Y. Rangers 9.7 2.5 +7.2 John Tavares N.Y. Islanders 12.2 5.4 +6.8 Vladimir Tarasenko St. Louis 8.6 2.0 +6.7 Patric Hornqvist Pittsburgh 9.9 3.2 +6.7 You can see that Jeff Skinner and Dustin Brown (and Nazem Kadri, too) really are the cream of the crop as it pertains to drawing penalties. If you subscribe to the notion that three goals is worth a point in the standings, then they have added four points (or two wins) on just the ability to draw penalties.dddddddddddd Think of this alternatively: if Jeff Skinner or Dustin Brown had no measurable impact (let’s say zero points over the same timespan), they still would have added about four points in the standings from just a penalty point of view. Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum – the forwards who have hurt their teams the most from a penalty aspect. Again, we will focus on differential as opposed to just penalties taken, as it will give us a better idea as to the larger impact on goals and wins/losses. FORWARD PENALTY DIFFERENTIAL TRAILERS, 2011-PRESENT PLAYER TEAM PENALTIES DRAWN PENALTIES TAKEN DIFFERENTIAL Chris Neil Ottawa 40 85 -45 Ryan Reaves St. Louis 28 66 -38 Jarret Stoll Los Angeles 27 62 -35 Milan Lucic Boston 42 72 -30 Kyle Clifford Los Angeles 44 72 -28 Matt Hendricks Edmonton 50 78 -28 B.J. Crombeen Arizona 31 55 -24 Todd Bertuzzi None 16 39 -23 Zenon Konopka None 31 53 -22 Cody McLeod Colorado 41 63 -22 A lot of the league’s tough guys can be found on this list, from Chris Neil, to Ryan Reaves, to the notorious Milan Lucic. What’s important to remember is that not all ‘tough guys’ sit at the bottom of the penalty differential lists. For example, Brandon Prust (+1) and Antoine Roussel (+2) have long played the aggressive agitator role for their respective teams. Yet, neither has hurt his club from a penalty impact. That’s largely because they have been either more effective in reducing bad penalties, or more effective in enticing the opposition to take penalties through said agitation. How does our top group look from a goal aspect? PENALTY DIFFERENTIAL AS GOAL VALUE, 2011-PRESENT PLAYER TEAM EST. GOALS ADDED EST. GOALS AGAINST DIFFERENTIAL Chris Neil Ottawa 7.2 15.3 -8.1 Ryan Reaves St. Louis 5.0 11.9 -6.9 Jarret Stoll Los Angeles 4.9 11.2 -6.3 Milan Lucic Boston 7.6 13.0 -5.4 Kyle Clifford Los Angeles 7.9 13.0 -5.0 Matt Hendricks Edmonton 9.0 14.0 -5.0 B.J. Crombeen Arizona 5.6 9.9 -4.3 Todd Bertuzzi None 2.9 7.0 -4.1 Zenon Konopka None 5.6 9.5 -4.0 Cody McLeod Colorado 7.4 11.3 -4.0 So, again, view this through the prism of the impact penalties – and penalties only – have had on outcomes. Chris Neil and Ryan Reaves have cost their respective teams about two to three points in the standings. This, again, is just a sliver of the player’s overall impact (whether it’s been good or bad) on his team’s performance. From a penalty aspect, this group has had an unfavourable impact on their team’s position in the standings. Combine the penalty differentials to what we know about each player’s multi-year shot-differential and scoring-differentials, and you can get an even stronger idea about the players impact on the game. ' ' '