The tributes to Kobe Bryant keep rolling in.
The Genesis Invitational, beginning Thursday at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, dedicated the eighth hole to the former Los Angeles Laker with a special hole sign and flag in the Lakers’ classic purple and gold.
The hole sign for the par-4, 433-yard eighth also features Bryant’s on-court persona and nickname, “Mamba.”
This is only the latest in several ongoing tributes to Bryant, 41, who died Jan. 26 alongside his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
Film director Spike Lee wore a purple and gold suit Sunday to the Academy Awards with Bryant’s other number with the Lakers, 24, sown onto the blazer’s lapels and the upper back. The Academy Awards paid tribute to Bryant, who won an Oscar in 2018 for the year’s Best Animated Short Film “Dear Basketball,” during the In Memoriam tribute.
For Kobe pic.twitter.com/tWYISRbLhQ
— The Genesis Invitational (@thegenesisinv) February 10, 2020
The Waste Management Phoenix Open honored Bryant one week after his death by using a purple and gold flag on TPC Scottsdale’s famed 16th hole for the event’s final round. The flag featured No. 24 on one side and No. 8 on the other. The hole location was 24 paces onto the green and eight paces from the left, and the hole was cut at 8:24 a.m.
PGA Tour players paid tribute to Bryant during the Waste Management Phoenix Open, too. Tony Finau played his first round in purple and gold golf shoes while Justin Thomas wore Bryant’s No. 33 jersey from Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
Thomas also used four wedges stamped with the phrases, “Mamba mentality,” “Black Mamba,” “Kobe Bean Bryant” and “81 points” during the event. Thomas announced Thursday he plans to auction the wedges and donate funds from the sale to the The MambaOnThree Fund, which was started by the Mamba Sports Foundation after Bryant’s helicopter crash. The fund aids the families of seven other victims of the crash: John Altobelli, Keri Altobelli, Alyssa Altobelli, Sarah Chester, Payton Chester, Christina Mauser and pilot Ara Zobayan.
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