With Notre Dame about to play its first home game in almost a month, a bunch of recruits and commits are on campus for the weekend. Among them is 2025 three-star running back commit [autotag]Justin Thurman[/autotag], who made his decision at the start of August 2023.
Thurman, who hails from Tampa, Florida, is taking in the sights of what will be his home starting next year. One good thing about him is he understands that no matter who you are, visiting Touchdown Jesus is an absolute must when one sets foot on the Notre Dame campus. It’s one of those things that looks beautiful no matter what time of day or year it is.
Thurman took in this breathtaking sight Friday and posted about it on social media. He also used it as a battle cry for the Irish to defeat Florida State on Saturday. It’s perfectly fine that he did so because it hard not to use Touchdown Jesus for inspiration.
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StrackaLine provides hole-by-hole maps of Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course for the 2023 Valspar Championship on the PGA Tour.
Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course – site of the 2023 Valspar Championship on the PGA Tour – was designed by Larry Packard and opened in 1970. The layout in Palm Harbor, Florida, has been the site of the Tour event since 2000.
The Copperhead will play to 7,340 yards with a par of 71 for the Valspar.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week.
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Formerly World Woods, the rebranded Cabot Citrus Farms in Florida will feature two full-size renovated layouts as well as the short course.
The Cabot Collection – the rapidly expanding Canadian golf developer and operator purchasing or building courses in areas ranging from Scotland to St. Lucia – has announced plans for a new 21-hole non-traditional course at its Florida property, Cabot Citrus Farms.
Formerly known as World Woods, with two courses originally designed by Tom Fazio and opened in 1994, Citrus Farms is seeing a complete renovation and rethinking as it becomes Cabot’s first property in the United States. About an hour’s drive north of Tampa International Airport, Cabot Citrus Farms is constructing a new clubhouse, luxury accommodations, practice facilities, shopping, dining, event spaces and new homes that go on sale in February.
The two renovated 18-hole courses, which feature sandy soil and somewhat surprising elevation features for Florida, are scheduled to open in December alongside the new short course.
The planned layout for The 21, a non-traditional short course at Cabot Citrus Farms in Florida (Courtesy of Cabot Collection)
The old Pine Barrens 18-hole course is being redone by architect Kyle Franz and will be renamed Cabot Barrens (pictured atop this story). Franz is partnering with Mike Nuzzo and advisor Ran Morrissett on the renovation of the old Rolling Oaks layout into the rebranded Cabot Oaks. The architecture team of Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns originally was pegged to complete the Cabot Oaks layout, but Cabot switched to Franz, Nuzzo and Morrissett in 2022.
Both Pine Barrens and Rolling Oaks appeared in various years among the top 100 on Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list, but over the past decade the property had lost much of its premium luster before Cabot purchased it in 2022 and announced plans for a complete and overdue overhaul.
Nuzzo will be in charge of design for the property’s short course, a non-traditional layout named The 21. Nuzzo was challenged to design as many holes as would fit in the 100 acres dedicated to the project, and he came up with 21 of them, many of them half-par holes, all of them promising interesting green complexes and a variety of strategies involved. The 21 also can be played as two distinct short courses instead of as one complete layout.
“We always want to keep the game fresh and exciting,” Ben Cowan-Dewar, CEO and co-founder of The Cabot Collection, said in a media release announcing The 21. “While (Bandon Dunes Golf Resort founder and early Cabot investor) Mike Keiser and I were looking at the terrain and courses we have in play, the idea was born to shape our 10-hole course and the 11-hole-course into a new 21-hole concept. The 21’s layout beckons golf aficionados who just can’t get enough of the rolling terrain in the Floridian countryside. This trifecta of courses at Cabot Citrus Farms will both challenge and delight players of all levels, with each paying homage to a handful of the most beloved places in the golf world.”
Check out several images of the redeveloping property below:
What’s the weather going to be like at Divisional Round sites?
The weekend is almost here and that means a pair of huge NFL playoff doubleheaders. There will be Divisional Round games on Saturday and Sunday. Of course, everyone wants to know what the weather conditions will be like for one reason or another.
Temperature: 22°
47% of precipitation
Snow showers will become more widely scattered in the afternoon. High 22F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 50%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
Wind WSW 13 mph
Night
Temperature: 20°/-1°
22% chance of precipitation
Winds: NW 17 mph
A few clouds from time to time.
Sunday
Rams at Bucs, 3 p.m. ET kickoff
Temperature: 59°
24% chance of precipitation
Cloudy
Winds: NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Bills at Chiefs, 6:30 p.m. ET kickoff
Temperature: Hi 43°, low 33°
3% chance of precipitation
Wind: NW 10 mph
What will the weather be like for NFL playoff games this weekend?
It’s the middle of January and you know what that means … NFL playoff games and the potential for winter weather. Things can change as we head into Saturday in Nashville and Green Bay, and Sunday in Tampa and Kansas City. However, it is never too early to check out the forecast for the host sites of the NFL Divisional Round games.
Temperature: 22°
47% of precipitation
Snow showers will become more widely scattered in the afternoon. High 22F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 50%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
Wind WSW 13 mph
Night
Temperature: -1°
6% chance of precipitation
Winds: NW 10 mph
A few clouds from time to time.
Sunday
Rams at Bucs, 3 p.m. ET kickoff
Temperature: 62°
14% chance of precipitation
Intervals of clouds and sunshine
Winds: NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Bills at Chiefs, 6:30 p.m. ET kickoff
Temperature: 24°
6% chance of precipitation
Wind: NW 6 mph
It’s fun to drive around in a golf cart. You know it. I know it. Jessica Elisabeth Smith knows it.
The 28-year-old from Boston was having herself a night, driving one outside Tampa in Dunedin, Florida, on Sunday when she encountered an active standoff with police, all while completely naked and emitting the “distinct odor” of alcohol.
Local authorities were in pursuit of an armed man who then climbed onto the roof of a home and pointed a gun at them. Smith drove past multiple sheriff’s vehicles and ignored commands to stop. Officers eventually got her out of the cart and the standoff between the SWAT unit and the man lasted six hours before deputies ultimately arrested 18-year-old Myles Abbott, who shot himself in the leg during the incident. Abbott now faces two counts of aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, two counts of aggravated assault as well as one for a felon in possession of a firearm. Two other teenagers were also taken into custody.
Despite the affidavit detailing how Smith’s “actions and inability to follow directions put multiple deputies at risk for potentially getting shot at,” Smith only faces a charge for resisting an officer without violence.
The Florida course was open for more than 50 years, but the owner said the club hasn’t been profitable since 2018.
Pebble Creek Golf Club in Tampa, Florida, will close in July after being at the center of a residential community for more than 50 years.
The club’s owner, Bill Place of Ace Golf, plans to convert the course northeast of Busch Gardens into a residential development, the Tampa Bay Times and other outlets reported.
Place had applied for the course to receive a brownfield designation, meaning he would have received funding to help clean chemical contamination on the course. Several neighbors objected, and Hillsborough County rejected his petition.
Place said in his petition that the course can no longer continue to operate at a loss. Despite an increase in rounds played in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the club has not been profitable since 2018. The club is down to 73 members from a high of 300 in the 1990s, the Times reported, with only 20 of those members coming from the 1,300 neighboring Pebble Creek homeowners.
After years of course closures around the country, the rate of closures slowed in 2020 as more people headed out to play golf all across the United States. But several courses still have closed this year despite the recent spike in play, as those layouts typically have suffered operating losses for years as participation declined after the Great Recession around 2008.
Seattle Seahawks backup quarterback Alex McGough is under investigation for allegedly assaulting a man at a bar in Tampa on St. Patrick’s Day.
[lawrence-newsletter]Seattle Seahawks backup quarterback Alex McGough is currently being investigated for assaulting a 24-year-old man at the Green Parrot Pub in Tampa, Florida on St. Patrick’s Day.
The victim, Anthony Albino, alleged that McGough accused him of hitting on his girlfriend and then punched him in the face. Albino told TMZ he was visiting a friend at the bar at the time and shared a video of the damage McGough allegedly inflicted on him in the aftermath of the incident.
The Seahawks drafted McGough out of Florida International University with the No. 220 overall pick in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL draft. He has yet to play a single snap at the professional level, so we may see Seattle release him very soon.
