ENJOY LIFE: Watch Sports on TV

A grand weekend of sports watching is here.  While this has little meaning for many, sports on TV, with some actual golfing on the side, are important parts of my life, with eating, sleeping and other viewing pleasure from Netflix/Prime and the like.  And in my case, I will only live this once.

One sport possibly only important in Hawaii, is volleyball.  The NCAA Women's season begins tonight with #3 Pittsburg vs #1 Nebraska and #16 Florida vs #6 Stanford, both available on FOX.  Hawaii has a new team, is not in the top 20, and plays Marquette next Friday, August 29.

Week Zero of NCAA football is this weekend.

• The first game of the season is always exciting because you are undefeated and could possibly go on to a perfect season.  Hawaii almost did that in 2007, and went on to play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on 1January2008.
• Looking ahead, Saturday, November 1, looks good, with Alabama vs LSU, Penn State vs Ohio State, Georgia vs Florida, Miami vs SMU, South Carolina vs Mississippi, Oklahoma vs Tennessee, Arizona State vs Iowa State and Texas Tech vs Kansas State.  
• Next weekend, August 23, the first weekend when almost every team plays, looks particularly exceptional, with #1 Texas at #3 Ohio State, #8 Alabama at #10 Florida State and #9 LSU at #4 Clemson.
• The season begins tomorrow, August 23 in Dublin, Ireland at noon, Eastern Daylight Time, when Iowa State plays Kansas State on ESPN.  Stanford at Hawaii at 7:30PM EDT on CBS ends NCAA football this weekend.  Incredibly enough, Hawaii is favored by 2.5 points.  However, next weekend we go to #11 Arizona.

In tennis, the U.S. Open begins play on Sunday, August 24.  This the 145th edition and the fourth and final Grand Slam event of the year.

• At the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York.
• Jannick Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka are the former singles champions.
• Prize money of $90 million, with each singles champ winning $5 million.  Even losing players in the first round of qualifying will receive $27,500.
• 
  American players hoping to do well are Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Madison Keys, Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton.  The last U.S. men's champ for this tournament was Andy Roddick in 2003.  However, it was only two years ago that Coco Gauff won the women's championship.
• Select matches can be found on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, as well as every match on ESPN+.

The Golf Tour Championship opened play yesterday at Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club, which has annually hosted this even since 2004.  Is 7440 yards long, with a par-70 and two par-5s.  The top five after yesterday were all Americans.  After the second round today:

TOUR Championship

T. Fleetwood

T1

THRU F

-13

R. Henley

T1

THRU F

-13

Cam. Young

3

THRU F

-11

R. MacIntyre

T4

THRU F

-10

P. Cantlay

T4

THRU F

-10

S. Scheffler

6

THRU F

-8

There is one major change to this year’s tournament. The Tour eliminated the controversial starting-strokes format from the Tour Championship in its latest attempt to make its season-ending tournament more compelling and climactic. All 30 players in the field will start at even par in a stroke-play tournament. The winner after 72 holes will capture the FedEx Cup and collect a bonus and five-year PGA Tour exemption.

The weather is projected to be fine, but thunderstorms are difficult to predict and the temperature could get up to 93 F on Sunday.  The favorites before play started was Scottie Scheffler (3/2, or 40% chance of winning) and Rory McIlroy (17/2, or 11%  chance).  After two rounds, Scheffler is at -8 and McIlroy is -7.

The first regular season game of the National Football League will be on Thursday, September 4 on NBC, Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles.  Super Bowl LX will be a little more than five months later, 8February2026, in Levi Stadium, Santa Clara, California.

Major League Baseball has around five weeks left.

• American League.
• East:  Blue Jays hold a comfortable lead.
• Central:  Same for Tigers.
• West:  Astros and Mariners are vying.  
• Wild Card:  Yankees currently looking good, but watch out for the Mariners and Royals.
• National League.
• East:  Phillies are ahead of Mets.
• Central:  Brewers in a commanding lead.
• West:  A battle between Dodgers and Padres.
• Wild Card:  Among Dodgers, Padres, Cubs and Mets.
• Top home run hitters are C. Raleigh (47), K. Schwarber (45), S. Ohtani (44) and A. Judge (40).
• Batting Average:  A. Judge .329, J. Aranda .316, and J. Pena .306.
• Stolen Bases:  J. Caballero 40, J. Ramirez 36 and C. Simpson 36.
• Pitching Wins:  F. Peralta 15.
• ERA:  P. Skenes 2.16.
• Strikeouts:  T. Skubal 200.
• Saves:  C. Estevez 33.
• Holds:  A. Uribe 33, J. Adam 27 and T. Santillan 27.
• The regular season ends, and the Wild Card tournament follows.  Kind of complicated, but:

The system was changed in 2022 to add a third wild card team from each league (expanding the playoffs to 12 teams).  First, 8 teams in a best-of-three Wild Card Series featuring the 3 wild cards from each league, plus the lowest record division team.  The winners each play the two better league champions in a best-of-five Division Series. The victors advance to a best-of-seven series to determine the champions of each league. The final two teams play each other in the best-of-seven World Series.  This was the MLB bracket last year.

• The World Series begins on Friday, October 24, with the champion needing 4 wins.  There is potential for Game 7 to be played on Saturday, November 1.

Netflix streams the boxing match between Saul Canelo Alvarez and Terence Bud Crawford on September 13.  First time these two dominant fighters of their era will meet.  All this for FREE, if you subscribe to Netflix.  Coverage begins at 3:30PM EDT, with main event at 9PM.

Netflix will also stream two NFL games on Christmas Day.  Dallas vs Washington and Detroit vs Minnesota.  Plus, Amazon Prime will this Christmas Thursday show Kansas City vs Denver.

-