SPORTS FANTASY

I don't feel particularly spiritual today, so will turn to sports.  The NFL season officially starts on September 5, so one more weekend of pre-season games remains.  This opener on September 5 will be held on a Thursday in Kansas City as a Super Bowl rematch between the Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens at 8:20PM EDT on NBC.  

Which leads me to ESPN Fantasy Football.  I have drafted one team, and plan to add two more.  If you're interested, click on ESPN and play for FREE.  If this is new to you, I'll provide some advice.

• 
  Join a Public League
• Click on Beginner.
• For Scoring, either reception option should be okay.
• For Draft Type, Snake would be easier.  This is the method where the computer assigns you your draft position, and the draft snakes along.
• Click on Draft Now to decided when you want to do the drafting.
• Then Join a League.
• The time shown is your home time.
• There will be ten teams in your league.
• While you wait, you can adjust the draft rankings to delete obviously injured players and advance the position of your favorites.  
• When the time comes, you will be alerted that your draft if beginning.  This is when you click to get started as indicated.
• Say you are a San Francisco 49ers fan, you can actually create a team of only their players and team defense.  
• However, there are 32 teams in the NFL, and only 10 in your league, so chances are that you will get better players if, when your time comes to pick, you select the best available for the positions you need.
• You will select a QB, TE, defensive team, someone who is a RB/WR/TE called Flex and kicker, plus two RBs and WRs....or nine starters.  Then seven substitutes.  RBs are a priority because they often get injured.  You will when the season begins be able to move one of your injured players into the IR spot  if that occurs, and select a replacement.
• When your turn comes, you have 60 seconds to pick someone.
• At the top of your league page, click on League, then on Settings.  Here you'll see rules for your league and other details, such as how your defensive team can earn points.  You get points for whatever the defense and special teams do.
• You can find out how well you did after the draft by going to Standings near the top.  I got 37%, which is not so good because the top team got 52% and worst 33%.
• You need to adjust your team late in the week before the games begin...and they start on Thursday, not Sunday.
• You can drop any player and pick one up by going to the free agent list.
• This is not rotisserie, it is head-to-to head against a team in your league, as selected by ESPN.
• In the final four weeks, the best four teams in the league are selected for the playoffs.
• Owning a fantasy team gives you more purpose in watching the NFL games on TV because you want your players only to do well. 

The NCAA football season started with a few games this weekend.  Hawaii beat Delaware State 35-14, which sounds terrific, but is not because we were favored by 39 points.  UCLA comes to Honolulu this coming Saturday.  Hawaii has essentially little chance to win this game.  Then again, Hawaii went to the Sugar Bowl in 2008, so you can never say never.  We got trounced by Georgia, but this was soon after Katrina, and a tour of the ruins was terrible and awesome.  I lived in Baton Rouge from 1969 to 1972 at LSU.  Pete Maravich played then, and the Tiger football stadium was adjacent to my chemical engineering department.  There was also a campus golf course across the street.  Haven't been back since 1972.

Switching to baseball, my three fantasy teams are in first, second and third place in their leagues.  I do have Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, but lament that I early on had Bobby Witt and Elly Dela Cruz, and dropped them.  I typically make 500 changes to my roster during season, and note that rarely does another team reach 100.  Oh, I should add that in baseball, you need to make adjustments daily.  Football, only once/week.

Next, golf.  

• Lydia Ko of New Zealand won the Women's Open, now called AIG Women's Open, in St. Andrews, her first major win since 2016.  
• More importantly, she just won the Gold Medal in the Paris Summer Olympics, so she is on an unusual high.  She had previously won Bronze in the 2020 Tokyo Games, and Silver in the 2016 Rio.
• Lydia was born in Seoul, South Korea 27 years ago, but moved with family to New Zealand when she was 4.
• She won an LPGA event when she was 15 while an amateur, and another.
• In 2015 she reached #1 in the Women's World Golf Rankings, at 17 years, 9 months and 9 days, the youngest player of either gender to attain that ranking.
• Has had 29 professional wins.
• 
  Married billionaire Jun Chung of South Korea in 2022.  His father is worth around $15 billion.
• She has a present net worth of $25 million and lives in Orlando, Florida.

I should add that there was a period in my life when I went to Edinburgh every August.  Had a marine biotechnology project with Heriot Watt University.  If you have any kind of choice, the middle of August to first week of September is the only period worthy of your enjoyment.  If you watched the AIG tournament above, you would have noticed that everyone had on winter-wear.  It's always cold in this part of Scotland, much worse from September to July.  There was one trip when I played at St. Andrews, then the next day at Carnoustie.  If you've come this far, you must....must click on one of our experiences at the St. Andrews New Course.  That photo to the left at the St. Andrews Golf Course Clubhouse.   Below, Grant Burgess in the middle and Tadashi Matsunaga to the right.  And if you clicked on that link, I can add that he did later on become president of his Tokyo university.

I'll further add that the worlds largest festival occurs in Edinburg for three weeks in August.  

• 
  Called The Edinburg Festival Fringe this year (August 2-26) had 51,446 scheduled performances of 3317 different shows across 262 venues from 58 countries.  Book fairs, Scottish food, exhibitions....name it.  There is a Tattoo inside the grounds of Edinburg Castle.  Nothing to do with markings on your skin, but is like giant parades with bands from the world over.
• Performers are not restricted from sexual explicitness nor religious limits, and controversy is part of the attraction.
• This is like the Olympics of art, with many of activities free on the streets of Edinburg.
• Established in 1947, I've been there at least four times in my life.
• Adelaide, Australia began a partnership with Edinburg in 2016, and is now the second largest event of this type.  The next one will be from February 21 to March 23 in 2025.

• 
  Keegan Bradly won the BMW tournament and zoomed from 50th place to #4.  
• #1 Scottie Scheffler with 6615 points, #2 Xander Schauffele 5422, #3 Hideki Matsuyama 3899 and Bradley 3096.
• Miraculously, Justin Thomas snuck in at #30 with 1617.

• 
  The FedEx Cup is confusing.
• Introduced in 2007 as the first annual playoff system.
• How the numbers aggregate is by scoring well throughout the year at those weekly tournaments.
• The Cup has three tournaments.
• The first was theSt Jude Championship with 70 players qualifying.  The winner got 2000 points, quadruple the usual 500.
• The second was the BMW Championship with the top 50 qualifying and no one being cut.  The winner got 2000 points.
• The final one will be the Tour Championship for the final 30 players, and again, no cuts.
• Here is where current leaders get at least an advantage.
• The #1 player, which this year is Scheffler, will start at 10 under par.
• #2, Schauffele at 8 under.
• #3, Matsuyama at 7 under.  But he might be injured.
• #4, Bradley at 6 under.
• #5 , Ludvig Aberg at 5 under.
• #6-10 at 4 under:  McIlroy, Morikawa, Clark, Burn and Cantlay.
• #11-15 at 3 under.
• #16-20 at 2 under.
• #20-25 at 1 under.
• #26-30 at even par.
• The FedEx Cup champion earns $18 million and a 5-year PGA Tour exemption.  Actually the winner of this tournament will take home $25 million.

• 
  Victor Hovland (right) won in 2023 and Rory McIlroy has three of these titles.  Scheffler does not appear to have a very great advantage, for the last winner who was also the #1 player for the regular season and won the Fed Ex Cup, was Jordan Speith in 2015.
• Scheffler was runner-up to MIlroy, while Schauffele was runner up last year and also in 2020 and 2019.  He was the winner in 2017.

• 
  The Fed Ex up Championship has been held 39 times with 28 different winners.
• The Tour Championship this year will be at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia, home of Bobby Jones.
• This tournament ends the season for the PGA.
• The 2025 season opening tournament is The Sentry at Kapalua, Maui, from December 20 to January 5.  Lahaina is ten miles away.
• The second tournament is the Sony Open in Honolulu.

About ocean storms, the most serious one is Typhoon Shanshan at 90 MPH, with strengthening into a Category 3 expected, but then, just before making landfall on Kyushu (the track has significantly moved west) on Wednesday.

Hurricane Hone is passing Hawaii by, but leaving some wind and considerable rain on the Big Island.  She is now right below me to the south at 75 MPH.

Hurricane Gilma earlier today strengthened to 130 MPH, but has declined to 115 MPH, and is projected to further weaken before approaching Hawaii.

Tropical Storm Hector just popped up, and is also heading for Hawaii.  He probably will stream by south of the state.

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