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    ‘Yoga for Jocks’ Keeps Golden State’s Kevon Looney Grounded

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    SAN FRANCISCO — Early Sunday morning, Kevon Looney of the Golden State Warriors decamped to a quiet atrium on the fourth floor of Chase Center, where floor-to-ceiling windows offered an expansive view of San Francisco Bay. The sun was beginning to burn through a hazy sky as Looney propped his iPad against a small metal column, unrolled his black yoga mat and greeted one of the more important figures in his professional life.A voice emanated from the iPad. It belonged to Jana Webb, the creator of a self-styled brand of yoga known as Joga, which she originally conceived as yoga for athletes. Webb, 47, appeared on a video conference call from her home in Toronto wearing a backward baseball cap. She is in Looney’s phone as “Jana Joga.”“How’s the body feeling?” she asked.“Really good,” Looney said.Moses Moody, one of Looney’s teammates, was also on the call, dialing in from his apartment near the arena. It was 8:30 a.m., about four hours before Game 4 of Golden State’s first-round playoff series against the Sacramento Kings. Webb spent the next 40 minutes guiding both players through a series of movements designed to loosen their joints, activate their muscles and center their psyches.“Reach, reach, reach,” she said as Looney, who is 6-foot-9, stood on his toes and extended his arms, a small pool of sweat forming on the mat below. “Get that fascial tension like you’re reaching for the net. Awesome. Now, hold.”(Webb was referring to the fascia, which is connective tissue throughout the body — and not to the face, though Looney appeared to have some tension there, too.)Looney does a virtual session of Joga — described as “yoga for jocks” — before each of Golden State’s games.Clara Mokri for The New York TimesEarlier in his career, Looney could not seem to escape injury. But over the past two seasons, he has emerged as Golden State’s sturdiest player, appearing in every one of his team’s games. He practices Joga before every game, at home and on the road.After Sunday’s session, Looney delivered against the Kings, finishing with 8 points, 14 rebounds and 6 assists to help the Warriors win their second straight game at home and even the series at two games apiece. In Game 3 on Thursday, he finished with 4 points, 20 rebounds and 9 assists while helping compensate for Draymond Green’s absence because of a suspension.Game 5 is Wednesday in Sacramento.“He’s always locked into the game plan,” Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said of Looney. “He never makes mistakes. He rebounds like crazy. He makes the right decision. The game is much simpler when Loon is out there for our guys.”Looney, who has won three championships with the Warriors, said his work with Webb had helped him cope with the physical and mental rigors of the N.B.A. Those demands are only heightened in the postseason.“It’s pretty brutal,” Looney said. “Every possession is intense. After the game, you’re just drained.”Clara Mokri for The New York TimesClara Mokri for The New York TimesAt this late stage of the season, when players are tired and stressed, game-day routines take on added significance. Players are looking for whatever edge they can get, especially this year, when injuries to stars like Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Giannis Antetokounmpo are a factor in so many series. Some players prioritize their naps. Others lace up their lucky sneakers. Looney does Joga.“I love to have 30 minutes to be in my body and see how I really feel,” he said.Looney got a head start in yoga as a high school senior in Milwaukee. Lou Chapman, who was one of his early basketball trainers, introduced him to Bikram Yoga — also known as hot yoga — when a new studio opened up. Looney recalled that he had barely survived his first class.“I did a lot of laying on the mat,” he said. “I felt like I was a top athlete, but they destroyed me.”The competitive side of Looney kept him coming back. Also, Chapman had gotten them discounted memberships, and he wanted to make sure that they took advantage of the deal.“I think we went 90 straight days,” Chapman, 42, said.During his lone season at U.C.L.A., Looney succumbed to a busy schedule and drifted away from yoga. After Golden State selected him as the 30th pick in the 2015 N.B.A. draft, he missed most of his rookie year with hip injuries — he had twin surgeries to repair right and left labrum tears — and later dealt with chronic nerve pain. He broke his collarbone during the 2019 N.B.A. finals and then had core muscle surgery in 2020. He returned for the 2020-21 season but felt disappointed by his play.Looney goes through his pregame ritual before Game 4 at the scorer’s table.Clara Mokri for The New York Times“I wasn’t moving as well as I had in the past,” he said. “I didn’t have that same burst or coordination.”Following the season, Looney approached Dr. Rick Celebrini, Golden State’s director of sports medicine and performance, with a specific request: Did he know any yoga teachers?In fact, Dr. Celebrini had someone in mind. He connected Looney with Webb, a fellow Canadian who had worked with other athletes for years. Their first virtual session was a doozy.“I can’t say I loved it,” Looney said, “mostly because I stunk at it.”Webb was unsparing in an initial assessment that she sent to Kyle Barbour, Golden State’s head performance coach, citing several areas where Looney’s mobility was limited. But she saw potential, and Looney experienced the sort of post-session soreness — in his glutes and his abdominal muscles, specifically — that signaled to him that he had room for improvement.“We don’t do a lot of long static holds,” Webb said. “It’s really about duplicating the biomechanics of movement in sport.”Looney worked with Webb several times a week that summer and then paused their sessions at the start of the 2021-22 season. At the time, Looney thought that Joga might just be a part of his off-season routine.Jana Webb directing a yoga session.Rick Madonik/Toronto Star, via Getty ImagesLooney started doing yoga in high school in Milwaukee.Clara Mokri for The New York Times“But after six or seven games, I felt like my body was going back to how it was before,” he said. “My back was hurting, and different things weren’t moving as well. So I reached back out: ‘Can we do this on game days?’”By the middle of last season, Looney had become such a believer that he organized a Joga session for anyone in basketball operations — players, coaches and staff members — who wanted to learn more. As usual, Webb led the class remotely. Even from thousands of miles away, she could sense varied levels of interest.“Draymond clipped his toenails during it,” she said, laughing. “I was like, is this actually happening?”Moody’s prevailing takeaway was confusion. As a teenager in Little Rock, Ark., he had dabbled in yoga by taking classes at his local LA Fitness. But Webb might as well have been speaking a foreign language.“She was talking so fast about all these muscles we were supposed to be activating,” Moody said. “And I’m next to Loon, so I’m just trying to keep up with him, and I don’t know what I’m doing.”But Moody was also intrigued. After spending the next couple of weeks peppering Looney with questions about Joga and human anatomy, Moody called Webb. “She gave me the rundown,” he said.Looney has played in all 82 regular-season games for Golden State in each of the past two seasons.Clara Mokri for The New York TimesLooney invited Moody to join him at his next pregame Joga session and then paid for all of his classes for the remainder of the season. They have been inseparable Joga buddies ever since. If the team has a shootaround scheduled for 11 a.m., Looney and Moody will typically meet with their mats on the team’s practice court at 8:30 a.m. for 40 minutes of stretching, lunging, twisting and breathing.“I can really tell the difference when I don’t do it,” Moody said. “You just feel more fluid in your movements. When that ball comes off the rim, you kind of feel like Spider-Man a little bit.”After more than 200 remote sessions with Looney, Webb finally met both players for the first time when the Warriors were in Toronto in December to play the Raptors. “That was so special,” Webb said.On Sunday, Webb started their session by having them do a series of breathing exercises.“Relax your jaw for four,” she said. “Soften the ribs for three. Start to squeeze the lower belly for two. And now completely pull the breath and empty it there. Notice what you’re thinking about.”Before long, Webb had them working through dynamic movements, one after another. She reminded Moody to keep his fingers spread when he was in a plank position. She urged Looney to lift his “pelvic floor.” She referred to their hip joints and femur bones, their side intercostals and adductors.At the end of it, Looney lay flat on his back, closed his eyes and exhaled.Clara Mokri for The New York Times More

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      Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Brings His Friends on Ride to NBA Stardom

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      Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Oklahoma City Thunder guard, is having a career season as one of the N.B.A.’s top scorers. He’s had a little help from his childhood friends.Mark Daigneault thought he had his first day in Hamilton, Ontario, all mapped out: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the star guard he coaches on the Oklahoma City Thunder, would make his morning rounds to shoot hoops and lift weights, and Daigneault would ride along.There was only one problem.“I don’t have room in my car,” Gilgeous-Alexander told him, “because I pick up all my friends.”Sure enough, once Daigneault hopped out of his Uber at Gilgeous-Alexander’s preferred gym in nearby Burlington, Daigneault found him working on his shooting as several young men in matching Thunder T-shirts rebounded for him.Gilgeous-Alexander soon introduced Daigneault to his “super close homies,” five childhood friends whose coordinated outfits that morning were no coincidence. They knew Daigneault was in town.“We wanted to make a good impression,” said Sunday Kong, a former high school teammate.In Oklahoma City, Gilgeous-Alexander, 24, has established himself as one of the N.B.A.’s most dynamic players. On a young team with promise, he ranks among the league leaders in scoring, averaging a career-best 31.4 points a game, while shooting 50.5 percent from the field — supercharged numbers that hint at his abilities as a 6-foot-6 guard who can absorb contact at the rim and create space on the perimeter.Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging a career-best 31.4 points per game while making about half of his shots. That puts him among the N.B.A.’s elite scorers.Garett Fisbeck/Associated PressBack home in Hamilton, a small city about 40 miles southwest of Toronto, five of Gilgeous-Alexander’s pals — a crew that also includes Mark Castillanes and Maurice Montoya, two of his best friends since elementary school, and Vincent Chu, who sat next to him in ninth-grade homeroom — practically fall off their couches whenever he crosses up a defender.“Anytime I see him do something on the court, I’m like, ‘Hey, we practiced that!’ ” said Devanté Campbell, who played youth soccer with Gilgeous-Alexander.Gilgeous-Alexander is always trying to improve, said Daigneault, now in his third season as the Thunder’s coach. That makes him an ideal fit for Oklahoma City — the same place where a young Russell Westbrook became a triple-double machine, Kevin Durant honed his perimeter game and James Harden crafted his step-back jumper. Each summer, Gilgeous-Alexander devises his own to-do list.“Shai’s got every resource available to him,” Daigneault said. “If he wanted to hire a staff and move to Hawaii in the off-season, he could do it. Instead, he parks himself in Hamilton and works with friends who have been in his life forever.”In Gilgeous-Alexander’s self-styled basketball lab, where a sneaker salesman and a restaurant manager throw defensive traps at him, and a college student and an aspiring doctor feed him passes, he prepares for his future by returning to his past.“Those guys give me a sense of home,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They give me back a piece of myself that feels like so long ago.”‘I’ve got to get better’Before he was getting buckets at Madison Square Garden and walking the runways at fashion week in Paris, Gilgeous-Alexander was someone else: the new kid at Regina Mundi Catholic Elementary School.After moving to Hamilton from Toronto when he was 11, Gilgeous-Alexander met Montoya and Castillanes on his first day of sixth grade. Castillanes recalled showing him around.“Kind of quiet,” Castillanes said. “But once you got to know him, he became himself.”Gilgeous-Alexander impressed on the basketball court, Castillanes said, by being able to dribble and make layups with both hands. But as an undersized ninth-grader at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School, Gilgeous-Alexander was cut from the equivalent of the junior varsity and wound up on a team of other freshmen.“I wasn’t hurt by it,” he said. “It was more a feeling of, I’m not good enough, so I’ve got to get better.”From left, Sunday Kong, Maurice Montoya, Vincent Chu and Devanté Campbell on the outdoor court at Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School, Gilgeous-Alexander’s former high school in Hamilton, Ontario.Cole Burston for The New York TimesIn his spare time, Gilgeous-Alexander would hoop with Montoya and Castillanes at their Filipino basketball league — the start of a basketball odyssey. Gilgeous-Alexander spent his sophomore year at Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School on Hamilton’s west side before he transferred again, this time to Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn., as he sought better competition.Gilgeous-Alexander eventually landed at the University of Kentucky, where John Calipari, the team’s coach, knew he needed to be tough on him. Otherwise, Calipari was going to hear about it — from Gilgeous-Alexander’s mother, Charmaine Gilgeous, a former Olympic runner for Antigua and Barbuda.“When he played well, she would call me and say, ‘Don’t you let up on him,’” Calipari said.Gilgeous-Alexander had arrived at Kentucky with a hitch in his jump shot — Calipari compared it to Charles Barkley’s herky-jerky golf swing — and spent the early weeks of the season mostly coming off the bench. By the middle of January, he was blossoming as a starter. By June, he was the 11th overall pick in the 2018 N.B.A. draft, headed to the Los Angeles Clippers.Gilgeous-Alexander played so well as a rookie that the Thunder put him on their wish list. That summer, when the All-Star Paul George wanted to be traded to the Clippers from Oklahoma City, the Thunder insisted that Gilgeous-Alexander be included in the deal.Now in his fourth season with the Thunder, Gilgeous-Alexander is the face of a franchise that should come equipped with training wheels. Although Chet Holmgren, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 draft, is out for the season with a foot injury, the Thunder have a core that includes Josh Giddey, 20, and Luguentz Dort, 23. Even amid his emergence, Gilgeous-Alexander has never sought to separate himself from his teammates.“I might have sworn at Lu before,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, “but me and Lu lived together, and we’re like brothers so it doesn’t count.”Luguentz Dort, left, and Gilgeous-Alexander bonded as teammates and roommates in Oklahoma City.Alonzo Adams/USA Today Sports, via ReutersGilgeous-Alexander and Dort, who are also teammates on the Canadian men’s national basketball team, are candid about their bromance. When Gilgeous-Alexander was vaccinated against the coronavirus, Dort held his hand. (Gilgeous-Alexander is afraid of needles.) When they were roommates, Dort accepted the perils of sharing space with someone who was recently voted GQ magazine’s Most Stylish Man of the Year.“I don’t want to say his clothes are everywhere,” Dort said. “But he has a lot of clothes — clothes that have a lot of volume to them.”But while life in the N.B.A. is rewarding — Gilgeous-Alexander is in the first year of a five-year contract extension worth about $180 million — it can also be disorienting. So he dodges complacency as if it were a traffic cone, supplementing his time with the team by working with Olin Simplis, a high-profile skills coach.And, of course, he heads to Hamilton at the start of each off-season to work out with friends who neither expect nor ask for anything in return.‘Just something that friends do’After his first season in Oklahoma City, Gilgeous-Alexander wanted to make his summers more structured. So he hit up his buddies: Would they help him out five mornings a week?“It wasn’t even something that needed to be said,” said Campbell, who works full-time at a Kids Foot Locker and assists with a girls’ basketball league. “It was just something that friends do: If we want to see this guy grow and succeed, we need to be there for him no matter what.”Last summer, Gilgeous-Alexander would text his friends a few minutes before 7 a.m. to let them know that he was leaving his house — his hoops-centric version of flashing the Bat-Signal.“You get that text, and you know you have about 15 minutes to get ready,” said Chu, a student at Toronto Metropolitan University.Gilgeous-Alexander’s friends help him with shooting and passing drills during the summer in Ontario.Cole Burston for The New York TimesGilgeous-Alexander would retrieve his friends, one by one, in his pale brown Mercedes-Benz G-Class. Castillanes was typically the first stop.“He always got the front seat,” Chu said.Once assembled, they often had enough time during the ride to Burlington to cram in a homespun version of “Carpool Karaoke.” In June, Jack Harlow’s album “Come Home the Kids Miss You” was on repeat. By July, they were tearing through Burna Boy’s latest tracks.“It’s a refreshing start to the day to see all your friends,” Chu said, “even when you’re mad tired.”At the gym, they would warm up and stretch, then Gilgeous-Alexander would polish his shooting for about an hour as his friends rebounded for him. He usually filled the second hour with drills — footwork, defense, passing — before transitioning into half-court games of 3-on-3 with a lopsided feel.“Shai takes all the shots,” Campbell said.His court work complete, Gilgeous-Alexander would drop his friends off so he could lift weights — in another buddy’s two-car garage. Nem Ilic, 27, who describes his work as “athlete development,” spent last summer building Gilgeous-Alexander’s lower body: lunges in the garage, weighted sled pushes in the cul-de-sac out front. (The neighbors always knew when Gilgeous-Alexander was around.)“Guys in my position, you usually have to work your way up from high school to college to the pros,” Ilic said. “And I have a unique timeline. It went straight to Shai.”In their own way, the friends are a part of it all.A poster of Gilgeous-Alexander is seen on the doors of Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School.Cole Burston for The New York Times“I think the N.B.A. is so crazy that he wants to come here and feel grounded,” Chu said, “and we’re all so grounded up here that we want to hear about N.B.A. life.”They can see Gilgeous-Alexander’s progress — and feel it, too, whenever they try to defend him on those early summer mornings.“I want to say it’s never really that much of a fun time,” Campbell said.They have busy lives of their own. Montoya, for example, manages a Hamilton-area restaurant. Castillanes recently relocated to Oklahoma City after Gilgeous-Alexander asked him if he would help manage his day-to-day life. And Kong works in public health while he prepares for medical school.“You know how they say commitment will pay off if you improve by 1 percent every day? It’s something you see in real time with Shai,” Kong said. “And it’s something I can apply to my own life.” More

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      Golf Carts Are Parked, Walking Is In and, Yes, It’s Exercise

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      Motorized carts have ferried golfers from hole to hole for 50 years, but more players these days are walking their rounds, and some courses have shunned carts entirely.There is a new movement afoot in recreational golf: walking.In swelling numbers nationwide, golfers are spurning the motorized golf cart — a standard-bearer of American golf rounds for more than 50 years — and instead choosing to stride or stroll from shot to shot.It has contributed to a substantial rise in rounds played and spawned another novel phenomenon: The verifiable notion that golf, when a round is walked, is exercise that can supplement a fitness regimen since golfers routinely burn 700 calories or more in an outing that can traverse up to six miles.Moreover, the walking boom, propelled by the advent of lightweight, trendy carry bags and technologically sophisticated pushcarts for golf bags, is being advanced by a legion of young and older players — with an increasing percentage of them women — who hark back to golf’s roots as a walk-only activity.“Walking is cool again,” said Bob Bullis, 72, who plays four times a week at the El Macero Country Club near his home in Northern California. “I’m out there together with these kids walking, getting a good workout and playing the sport the way it was meant to be played.”For decades, the stereotypical perception of the sport has been of sedentary golfers zooming around the course in carts with cup holders full of mixed drinks. But many golfers today are purposefully adopting a more wholesome, even Zen-like, vibe.Golfer Mike Riggs pull his clubs on a trolley with wheels at the Hancock Golf Course in Austin, Texas.Cindy Elizabeth for The New York Times“Walking the two minutes from shot to shot can be peaceful meditation,” said Kevin McKinney, 51, a musician who plays regularly at the walking-only, municipally owned Hancock Golf Course in Austin, Texas. “You get your heart rate up, something you don’t experience when rattling around in a cart. It’s a beautiful setting if you let it be.”Interviewed as he played the Hancock course last month, McKinney texted a picture to a reporter of a man and a woman golfing while they pushed a child in a baby stroller.The increase in walking rounds — some golf courses have seen an upsurge of 300 percent — is traced to the pandemic and the impact it has had on leisure pursuits.In 2020, golf was one of the few outdoor activities considered safe from the spread of the coronavirus and American golf facilities hosted 50 million more golf rounds than they did in 2019. During much of last year, because of strict physical distancing guidelines, motorized golf cart use was banned and walking became commonplace, even at country clubs and resorts that once required the use of a golf cart.“People discovered they liked walking and even when Covid rules were lifted this year and carts came back, people were like, ‘No, we’re going to keep walking,’” said Jerramy Hainline, the senior vice president of GolfNow, an online tee-time service with nearly four million registered golfers that provides technology to more than 9,000 golf courses. “Walking is now here to stay.”A sign indicates that golf carts are not allowed in a certain area at Hancock Golf Course in Austin, Texas.Cindy Elizabeth for The New York TimesIf that remains true, it will bring new light to recent studies that have championed golf’s health benefits. In 2018, a consortium of public health experts, with help from several governing bodies including the World Golf Foundation, researched 342 previously published studies on the sport and linked playing golf with better strength and balance and a lower risk of heart disease. A 2008 Swedish study of 300,000 golfers found the death rate for golfers to be 40 percent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status, which translated to a five-year increase in life expectancy. Golfers with lower handicaps were the healthiest, perhaps because they played more.But the most fascinating and enduring study of golf’s creditability as worthy, moderate exercise was conducted 13 years ago by Neil Wolkodoff, the director of the Colorado Center for Health and Sport Science. At a cost of $30,000, Wolkodoff strapped portable metabolic measuring systems to amateur golfers to count calories burned while playing nine holes in a variety of ways: walking and carrying clubs, walking with a pushed or pulled cart that transported their clubs, walking with a caddie and riding in a cart.It was not a surprise that golfers walking and carrying their bags across the typically undulating topography of a golf course expended the most energy and, on average, burned 721 calories. Walking with a pushcart produced roughly the same caloric output and being accompanied by a caddie burned 621 calories. Even riding a cart while playing nine holes burned 411 calories on average. Just swinging a golf club 100 times, which the average golfer would likely do with practice swings, uses up a significant amount of energy.A man uses a robotic cart, controlled by a remote he carries, at Bobby Jones Golf Course in Atlanta.Kevin D. Liles for The New York TimesThe calorie burn would likely double over 18 holes, when a player typically zigzags across fairways chasing errant shots. There have been follow-up studies to the research by Wolkodoff, who said his findings have held up as accurate.“Golf is not the same exercise as running or using an elliptical, but it’s got appeal as part of a health routine,” Wolkodoff, who has a Ph.D. in physiology and has trained a variety of professional athletes, said this month. “People ought to expend 2,500 to 3,000 calories a week. If people go to the gym three times a week and play golf twice a week, they can hit that number.”The walking golfers flocking to the game in the last two years are part of a cohort of new players that are more likely to be female and younger than 35. A survey of nearly 25,000 golfers released last month by KemperSports, which manages 120 golf facilities nationwide, discovered that players new to the game since last year’s pandemic were almost 33 percent girls or women, which is nearly 10 percent higher than the industry average. More than 26 percent of the new golfers were 18 to 34 years old, roughly four percent above the national average.“We had been missing the Millennials and Gen Z demographic in golf,” Steven Skinner, the Kemper Sports chief executive officer, said. “But they’re into fitness and more willing to throw a bag on their back and walk. That’s been part of why they’ve really jumped into the game.”At Bobby Jones Golf Course, Adrian Knight, left, and Jordan Colbert, walk and carry their own clubs.Kevin D. Liles for The New York TimesMore than a quarter of junior golfers are also nonwhite, whereas just 6 percent of young golfers were 21 years ago.At the Hancock golf course in Austin, where rounds surged 82 percent last year and have climbed another 19 percent this year, Kevin Gomillion, who oversees golf operations, said the increases came after the city decided to make the course a walking-only facility.“It’s one of our best moves,” Gomillion said. “The course went from struggling and being upside down to solvent.”The condition of the course has also improved dramatically without tire tracks on the fairways and high traffic areas. Slow play has become less of an issue since people tend to walk at roughly the same pace.While walking rounds are snowballing, no one in the golf business expects motorized golf carts to disappear entirely. For one, many golfers need a cart for health reasons or because they have a disability. Also, daily rental cart fees can provide considerable revenue to golf facilities (although many courses this year have started charging the same fee for walking or riding in a cart and not seen a drop-off in play). Golf outings often see as many as 80 players teeing off at the same time all around the course, which is far easier to accomplish with cart use. Still, before this year, nearly 70 percent of rounds were played with a golf cart, according to National Golf Foundation. But in a foundation survey last summer, 33 percent of golfers who played regularly said they were walking more frequently. Similar figures for this year have yet to be compiled.Traditional golf carts, which became widespread in the 1960s, are facing more modern competition. At PGA Tour Superstore, a leading golf online retailer with 47 brick-and-mortar locations across the country, sales of easy-to-lug golf bags and lightweight, nimble pushcarts rocketed by as much as 210 percent in 2020. This year, a company spokeswoman said, sales of women’s carry bags have doubled and junior carry bags sales are up 200 percent.“It keeps you limber, the exercise is great and your body feels fluid. We’re going to keep it up; it just makes you feel good,” Winky Fowler said of walking a round.Kevin D. Liles for The New York TimesThere are also new modes of golf course transportation — the Phat Scooter, an electric two-wheel device, and four-wheel GolfBoards — challenging the standard electric or gas golf cart, though they still offer golfers a ride. Robotic carts controlled by a remote can also carry your bag.“The game is changing, which is something people once said golf would not do,” Hainline said. “But it’s different than it was a year ago and golf is going to be even more different two years from now.”At the Bobby Jones Golf Course in Atlanta, walking rounds were usually relegated to undesirable late afternoon or evening tee times. But, spurred by a busy season of walking rounds during the pandemic when carts were prohibited, the course this year made all play before noon walking only (carts, and walkers, were allowed after noon). Revenue has increased and walking golfers now represent 74 percent of rounds played.“People see it as a two- or four-hour walk in the park,” Brian Conley, the course’s general manager, said.Winky Fowler plays regularly at the Bobby Jones course and used to ride in a cart. In the last 18 months, she and her circle of friends began walking instead.“We were like, ‘This ain’t bad, I like this,’” Fowler said. “It keeps you limber, the exercise is great and your body feels fluid. We’re going to keep it up; it just makes you feel good.” More

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      The Impact and Influence of Tiger Woods: Here. There. Everywhere.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Tiger Woods’s Car CrashWill Woods Play Again?Sheriff Expects No ChargesGolf Without TigerA Terrible Turn of FateCareer Highs and LowsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn GolfThe Impact and Influence of Tiger Woods: Here. There. Everywhere.From fitness trailers to fist pumps and golf’s global representation, the star, recovering in the hospital after a serious car crash, has a hefty presence at a PGA tournament even when he’s not playing in it.Tiger Woods’s shadow loomed large Thursday at a World Golf Championship event, the first on the PGA tour since the news of his car crash.Credit…Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockFeb. 25, 2021Updated 7:59 p.m. ETBRADENTON, Fla. — Tiger Woods was never expected to play in the first round of the PGA Tour event held Thursday in Central Florida. It did not matter. His presence, his influence, the impact of his life and career was evident throughout the grounds.If this is at least the beginning of the end of the Woods era in golf, in the wake of his serious car crash Tuesday, the setting at the Concession Golf Club, where the tournament is being held, revealed much about what he has meant to the sport and the almost incalculable change he has wrought.It was nearly impossible to look in any direction and not see Woods’s imprint.On the serpentine drive into the golf course, multiple, extra-wide trailers labeled “Player Performance Center” lined the road. They are mobile fitness facilities chock-full of treadmills and advanced exercise equipment.It would now be unthinkable to host a PGA Tour event without them, and the trailers log about 25,000 miles annually to keep up with the 100-plus pro golfers whose exacting workouts are now a sacrosanct part of their tournament regimens.Roughly 25 years ago, more PGA Tour players probably smoked than worked out during an event. What changed?Tiger Woods turned pro in 1996, won the Masters a year later and two months after that made the fastest ascent to No. 1 in the world golf rankings. Moreover, he was a workout freak, had started beefing up and his prodigious drives would soon spawn the redesign of top golf courses around the world.Golfers back then were a hodgepodge of shapes, some with bellies that bulged over gaudy white belts. It was an image that perpetuated the notion that golf was not a sport. There is a different look on the tour these days, and a short walk from the fitness trailers to the practice range would prove it.From behind the range, one could assess the form and movements of several dozen top golfers whose ages ranged from about 20 to 40. Nearly all had trim, athletic builds — and flat stomachs. They swung ferociously hard, yet never seemed out of balance, a compliment to their conditioning and developed strength and flexibility. Most had learned and honed that mix of pliancy and power from watching a single uber-dedicated golfer, their idol, Tiger Woods. Even the swing coaches who stood by the golfers had studied and memorized every Woods move before he had turned 30 years old. In other words, by the time he had won his 10th major championship.Just beyond the range was the first tee, and the path leading to it was awash in the emblems of corporate sponsors. Professional golf had always been supported by commercial interests but that relationship blossomed exponentially as Woods came up on the scene with a memorable Nike television advertisement when he stared into the camera and said: “Hello, world.”Thursday, there was a scoreboard near the first tee encircled by not one, but seven logos from tournament sponsors. The prize money for the one-week event is $10.5 million, or around five times what PGA Tour tournaments paid before Woods turned pro.This week’s event is a World Golf Championship event, a collaborative effort to periodically bring together the best players from tours in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. There were no world championships until 1999, by which time Woods, whose multicultural background had helped golf explode internationally, had won two majors and 13 PGA Tour events (and, of course, he won two of the three inaugural World Golf Championships in 1999).As play began in the first round, long putts dropped and players celebrated with uppercut, clenched fist pumps. There was no reason to ask where they learned such a signature move. They wore eye-catching colors made by top designers who earned most of their revenue outside golf and their garb was embossed with the logos of sponsors whose customers might not even be golfers: luxury car manufactures, credit card companies, premium watch makers. Woods pioneered such crossover appeal.It did not matter where one walked. Woods was here. Wednesday, Rory McIlroy, a four-time major winner who grew up idolizing Woods and now considers him a close friend, was asked if the players in this week’s field had considered some kind of tribute to Woods. McIlroy shook his head back and forth.“He’s not gone,” McIlroy said. “I feel like we should pay tribute to him every day for being on the PGA Tour and what he’s done for golf.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More