The 115th US Open kicks off at Chambers Bay in Washington State on Thursday. By Sunday afternoon, one victorious golfer (assuming no playoff) could stagger to the 18th hole of the controversial Robert Trent Jones Jr. course, which is only eight years old and hosting its first Open.

But he's likely to look pretty sharp, in the sartorial sense. Pro golfers are dressing better than ever, and the trend these days is a dialing back of the wild getups of a few years ago (sort of — see Ian Poulter's study in purple, above).

Here are the guys to watch this week who do golf duds best.

Rickie Fowler: The Players Championship winner has never feared color (Who can forget the all-orange combinations?). He's also pioneered the "big cap" look, complete with a giant, scrolled Puma logo.

Ian Poulter: The Brit is an essay in flamboyance. No one rocks the throwback plaid-pants look better. And check out that flash of aquamarine on the shoes!

Justin Rose: Poulter's countryman keeps in simple in minimalist ensembles that allow his clubs to do the talking.

Olympic medalist Lizzie Armitstead of Britain won stage one of the highly ranked Aviva Women's Tour on Wednesday afternoon in the UK — then crashed hard at speed a moment after the crossing the finish line, VeloNews reported.

She and a handful of other riders went down hard, and Armitstead looked to be the worst off.

It appears that Armitstead, who rides for the Boels-Dolmans team, crashed into the finish-line photographers.

In the GIF above, it appears that Armitstead won the field sprint, raised her arms in a victory salute, lost her line, and then grabbed her handlebars in an effort to regain control of her bike.

The Telegraph said that the photographers were in their correct positions after the finish line, per the governing body UCI's rules.

The paper also said: "Armitstead, 26, initially appeared to move her arms and hands before being administered with oxygen and placed in a neck brace. Her shoes were removed, as was one of her socks."

You can watch the crash in the video below as well as here on ITV.com:

The first stage took riders from Bury St. Edmunds to Aldeburgh.

Armitstead's teammates accepted her jersey for her:

The five-stage race finishes June 21 in Hemel Hempstead.

British Cycling released this statement:

Last week Armitstead was racing in the US, where she won the Philadelphia Cycling Classic.

Update (2:06 p.m. ET): The BBC reported that Armitstead was discharged from the hospital:

"Armitstead is said to be bruised and battered and a decision on whether she will race in the rest of the tour will be taken on Thursday," the BBC said.

SEE ALSO: Donald Trump, who once sponsored the biggest bike race in America, took a shot at John Kerry for cycling

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Before Game 6 of the NBA Finals, Golden State Warriors guard Harrison Barnes said he'd drink alcohol for the first time if he won the NBA title:

Barnes, a 23-year-old who was drafted seventh overall in 2012, made good on that promise after the game.

SI's Lee Jenkins was at the Warriors' after-party, and he can confirm that — unlike Andre Iguodala — Barnes did indeed drink a little bit. Barnes even kept his energy up enough to return to the festivities after a midparty shower:

Two Warriors famously abstain from alcohol, Iguodala and Harrison Barnes, and both were under more pressure to drink than college freshmen. "They didn't get me," Iguodala claimed. "They got me," Barnes admitted. When Barnes slipped out the door a little before 3 a.m., saying he needed to shower back at the Ritz, reserve guard Justin Holiday hollered after him: "You're going to be asleep in 10 minutes." Barnes, true to his word, returned. The party churned past 5 a.m.

From the locker room:

Joy:

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Nike is the market leader in sports footwear and apparel. Here are 11 little-known facts about the athletic giant. 

Produced by Devan Joseph. Special thanks to Lara O'Reilly.

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After the Cleveland Cavaliers built a 2-1 series lead in the NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors made smart adjustments and the Cavs looked burned-out from playing a shortened rotation because of injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving.

That the Cavs were even able to make the series close and exciting is a testament to the unprecedented workload LeBron James had to undertake. James basically had to play every minute of the Finals, conduct the Cavs' offense on every possession, and average 40-point triple-doubles to give the Cavs a chance against the stacked, healthy Warriors.

To criticize LeBron for losing 2-4 in the NBA Finals is to ignore that this Cavs team, down Love, Irving, and center Anderson Varejao since November, had to rely on LeBron to be at his peak at every moment in the series.

On Zach Lowe's podcast, "The Lowe Post," Lowe spoke to ESPN NBA analyst and former head coach Jeff Van Gundy about where this Cavs team would be without James. In Van Gundy's opinion, they wouldn't even be in the playoffs.

"If you flipped LeBron James to Golden State and you flipped [Stephen] Curry to Cleveland, what would the series be?" Van Gundy asked. "It'd be a sweep. It'd be a sweep, and that's not knocking Curry; Curry's had an unbelievable year ... But there's no doubt who's the MVP of this series."

Van Gundy continued by saying, "What other player could have two wins and two other competitive losses — and I'd even say Game 4 was competitive until the start of the fourth, right? Who else could have pulled this off? Anyone?"

Lowe then wondered where the Cavs would be if an elite forward like Carmelo Anthony was in LeBron's place. Lowe said he didn't think the Cavs would be a playoff team, and if they were, they'd be knocked out of the first round. Van Gundy replied:

"Oh, they don't win 30 games. That's no knock on Carmelo Anthony ... I think he's an outstanding player, and his season where he led the Knicks to the division title and they won 54, I think spoke to just how great he was or is. But that being said, this team, with this rotation, this lack of depth, you couldn't go on and win enough games to make the playoffs. I just don't see how. Listen, let's just say you took James off this team, and the rest of the guys were left to play a regular season. Would they win 15 games in a regular season? ... No, they couldn't average — they wouldn't be able to average 80 points." 

This is, of course, one man's take on the importance of James, but stats did back up that the Cavs were basically helpless in the Finals when James wasn't on the floor.

For the entire Finals the Cavs' offensive rating was 93.8 points per 100 possessions. With James on the floor it jumped to 97.3. With James off the floor, it fell to 50.9. The Cavs scored 51 points per 100 possessions when James was on the bench. They were inept without him on the court. He only sat for a total of 23 minutes over the course of six games, during which time the Cavs made just six field goals.

FiveThirtyEight's Neil Payne used advanced data to rank NBA players' supporting casts in the Finals and found that this year's Cavs team was 60th of 62.

James shouldn't be blamed for coming up short in the Finals. Bringing the Cavs two wins away from the championship with a depleted roster puts into context just how great James is.

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Basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson is joining Square's board of directors, the company announced Wednesday. 

"I have the deepest admiration for Earvin as a tireless champion for creating economic opportunity in underserved communities," Square CEO Jack Dorsey said in a press release. "As a successful entrepreneur and advocate for economic inclusion, Earvin’s unique perspective will be invaluable to our community of sellers and our board. We are honored to have him."

Square is in the spotlight as Dorsey recently took on an extra job as the interim CEO of Twitter.

Johnson is currently the chairman and CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises, which creates products and services for underrepresented urban communities. 

"I am ready to get to work as a member of Square’s Board of Directors so that any business, in any community, can compete and win," Johnson said in the announcement. 

Roelof Botha, Vinod Khosla, Jim McKelvey, Mary Meeker, Larry Summers, and David Viniar also sit on Square's board. 

Dorsey and Johnson announced the news on Twitter.

SEE ALSO: Square has reportedly filed to go public, even as its CEO will be also be running Twitter

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HBO is making a serious run at Bill Simmons, according to the Hollywood Reporter's Lacey Rose.

There's been plenty of speculation about where Bill Simmons will land after his much publicized split with ESPN in May. Rose reports that Simmons has several suitors, but notes that having his own TV show is appealing to Simmons.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Considerably more likely is Simmons, whom the network is said to have made a big play for after his unceremonious booting from the more corporate ESPN. Such a move would be straight out of the HBO playbook, which famously provided a creative reprieve for former ABC flameout Bill Maher many years earlier. Though Simmons is said to have several suitors, insiders say conversations at HBO have focused on a TV show — something Simmons is believed to want — along with heavy digital extensions that make the prolific personality tailor-made for the HBO Now era.

Though many believe Simmons' site, Grantland, didn't make enough money to justify his $5 million salary, he was the owner of the most popular podcast in sports and one of the original producers of the popular "30 for 30" documentary series.

HBO has found success in documentaries and docuseries in recent years, as Rose notes, and has become the home for talk shows for John Oliver and Bill Maher. Simmons dabbled in TV with ESPN and this past year introduced "The Grantland Basketball Hour," which struggled to draw viewers.

Earlier in June, Gawker reported a rumor that Simmons was looking to start an online subscription network with Jon Stewart, who Rose reports is also being sought after by HBO.

Though it's unclear how Simmons would incorporate writing into any of these ventures, he's had some success on other media platforms, and it seems his next destination will involve TV .

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The FBI and the Justice Department are investigating whether St. Louis Cardinals front-office personnel hacked into a network used by the Houston Astros, according to The New York Times. 

From a legal standpoint, it appears that a crime has been committed and the FBI and Justice Department want to know who did it. Even a statement from Major League Baseball's commissioner refers to an "illegal breach," according to The Times.

However, from a baseball standpoint, the question now revolves around just how serious the crime was and whether the St. Louis Cardinals gained a competitive advantage by allegedly breaking into a Houston Astros database, or whether this is just the front-office equivalent of stealing signs.

On the surface, there is evidence to suggest that this was just a simple breach carried out by low-level staffers aimed at embarrassing one of their former bosses. However, there is another report that suggests this was a more complicated cyberattack and that there are reasons to at least wonder if knowledge of the hack and possession of the stolen information went further up the chain of command.

The stealing signs theory.

On the one hand, the FBI investigation reportedly traced the hack to a home used by multiple members of the Cardinals front office, according to Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times. That house was located in Jupiter, Florida, where the Cardinals conduct spring training. Since highly compensated, upper-level executives are unlikely to be sharing a house with others, it makes more sense that the house where the attack allegedly came from was occupied by lower-level members of the front office.

In addition, information from the attack was posted on an online hacking forum. This move suggests that the alleged hack was not carried out to gain a competitive advantage, but rather to embarrass the Astros and their general manager, Jeff Luhnow, who previously worked in the Cardinals front office. This theory was supported by a source for Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated.

"The motivation, especially having the information published, seems to have been to embarrass [Luhnow]," the source familiar with the investigation told Verducci. Another source told Verducci that some in the Cardinals organization felt Luhnow took too much credit for the recent success of the Cardinals. Schmidt described Luhnow as a "polarizing executive."

The original Times report also said the hackers appeared to gain access to the network by using old passwords that Luhnow and other former members of the Cardinals front office, who also left to join the Astros, used when they were still working for the Cardinals.

The competitive-advantage theory.

However, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, the hack was more complicated than just simply stealing a password.

"Initially, the assumption was that it was a hacker having fun. While the Astros’ security wasn’t strong, the source [with Major League Baseball] said, the breach involved more than taking old passwords from Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow’s days as Cardinals farm director and inputting them into a website."

And then there is the information itself. While internal trade discussions were leaked online and eventually posted to Deadspin, the database also contained "proprietary statistics and scouting reports" according to The Times' report. That information has not been leaked online.

"There was more out there," the league source told Passan.

MLB is apparently worried about another leak online. However, there is also the possibility that the other information was indeed used as a competitive advantage.

While some scoff at the possibility of the Cardinals, one of the sport's most successful franchises, needing information from the Astros, a team in the midst of their third straight season with at least 106 losses, the fact remains that a person (Luhnow) the Cardinals used to rely on for information is now generating that information for another club — and there is potential value for the Cardinals in having this new information.

If the information went further up St. Louis' chain of command, the penalty from Major League Baseball is going to be much stiffer than one handed down for stealing signs.

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After the Golden State Warriors clinched the NBA title, the player who got the most praise for ending their 40-year title drought wasn't Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, or Draymond Green — it was 11-year veteran Andre Iguodala, the guy who was paid $12 million to come off the bench this year.

"For us, it’s really fitting that the award went to Andre because he sacrificed his starting role from the first game of the season," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after the game. "It set the tone for everything we were able to accomplish, so it feels like full circle to me that Andre received the award. It couldn’t have happened to a better person."

Iguodala became the only NBA Finals MVP to ever win the award without starting a game during the regular season. His only starts this season came in Games 4, 5, 6 of the NBA Finals, when the Warriors went small after losing two of the first three games of the series. Golden State won all three games he started.

Iguodala is one of the most unlikely Finals MVP winners ever. Before the series started Iguodala's chances of winning the Finals MVP were as high as 125/1, according to Bovada, and he admitted after the game that even he wouldn't have taken those odds:

"I'm not surprised [I won Finals MVP], but I would have bet on – I would have bet on Steph.  I would have bet on Draymond.  Draymond's been great for us all year and very, very high‑IQ guy. This is the type of series where he can get triple‑double numbers every night, and we saw it in the Houston series, and I knew it would carry over. So those two guys I would have bet on."

Iguodala didn't put up the same stats that Curry did, or average a double-double like Green, but he was tasked with what Kerr called "the hardest job in basketball," guarding LeBron James. LeBron may have been able to put up historic numbers — he averaged 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, and 8.8 assists during the Finals — but he did his most significant damage when Iguodala wasn't in the game.

When Iguodala sat, LeBron shot 44 percent from the field, averaged 35 points per 36 minutes with 2.2 turnovers, and the Cavs were a +30. Those numbers drop to 38.1 percent, 26 points per 36 minutes, 2.9 turnovers, and a -55 when Iguodala was on the court.

After the game, even LeBron applauded Iguodala for his performance throughout the Finals.

"You know, he made us pay. He made us pay tonight with big shots, timely shots, getting out on the break, getting rebounds, getting assists. He was pretty good for their team," he said.

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With the 115th US Open golf tournament kicking off this week at Chambers Bay in Washington State, a lot of recreational golfers are going to be inspired by the spectacle and get the urge to hit the links.

Golfers come in a variety of shapes and sizes — and ages! Ability also varies, but regardless of whether you're a scratch player or a 30 handicapper, it never hurts to look good when you swing the clubs.

When choosing golf attire, gents, the problems start when you dress too young or too old. These days, there's a very clear look for each age group. The pros below, ranging in age from 26 to 60, are good examples for how to put your outfits together and project a great image at the next corporate outing, family golf vacation, or weekend round with your buddies.

Young Gun

The hard-charging younger generation of tour pros set the tone here. Loose and baggy isn't their thing. Trim and athletic is. Fitness is far more important to the under-30 set these days than it was in golf's raffish past, when a player could consider a couple of beers hefted after the round as a workout. When you're in your early 20s, you can really get out there, with wild colors, big belt buckles, zany shoes, and bold patterns. Once the late 20s arrive, however, it's best to start toning it down. Rory McIlroy, 26, is a fine role model. He has fun these days with his threads, just not as much fun as he did earlier in his career. That said, Nike isn't worried about putting him in very bright hues. Hot pink, anyone?

Happy Middle Age

Your poster boy here is Fred Couples, 55, one of the most popular pros out there. The one-time Masters winner has an easy, powerful swing and a relaxed on-course demeanor. Pretty much everyone likes him. A bad back prevented him from enjoying a more successful career, but he generally looks like he's having a great time, and he dresses in a way that proves he's comfortable in his skin. Notice that nothing is tight, but nothing is too baggy or sloppy, either. It's all just right. Couples also shows that subdued pattern and colors are best choice once you get to the other side of 35.

Seniority Rules

Just do whatever Greg Norman does. The 60-year-old Australian was the most powerful, dominant player of his generation, which came between the Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods eras. Norman favors simple, yet never boring, ensembles, with a minimal amount of patterning and few logos beyond his own signature line, Great White Shark (his nickname). He also demonstrates that staying in shape is the best way to look good, and keep your game in top form, as you enter the senior years.

SEE ALSO: The 15 best-dressed golfers at this week's US Open

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Despite reports early in the offseason that the Seattle Seahawks and Russell Wilson were close to a $100+ million contract extension, it is looking more and more like the Super Bowl-winning quarterback will remain one of the most underpaid players in the NFL for one more season.

The latest comes from Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, who reports that Wilson has taken out an insurance policy "worth millions" to protect him from a career-ending injury.

While insurance policies of this nature are not unheard of, Schefter speculates that this might be an indication Wilson is skeptical of being able to get a deal done before the season.

Earlier this offseason, it was reported that Wilson was seeking the richest contract in NFL history, with Jason Cole of Bleacher Report saying that Jay Cutler's seven-year, $126.7 million contract with the Bears is "the starting point basically for where Russell Wilson wants to be."

While Cutler's deal falls in the class of recent quarterback contracts that include a lot of guaranteed money and security, the Seahawks were reportedly offering something closer to those signed by Colin Kaepernick and Andy Dalton. Those deals have the potential to be huge but are basically year-to-year deals in which the team can get out whenever they want.

The other situation working against Wilson getting his new deal this summer is the salary cap.

The Seahawks have just $10.8 million in cap space. The two players who recently signed contracts similar to what Wilson is looking for, Cutler and Cam Newton, had salary cap figures of $13.0 million and $18.5 million in the first seasons of their new deals, respectively.

It wouldn't be impossible to fit a $13-18 million cap figure into the Seahawks' 2015 payroll, but it would likely mean the Seahawks would have to re-work the deals of other players.

If Wilson does play the 2015 season without a new contract, the Seahawks would likely place the franchise tag on their quarterback for the 2016 season. While that would boost Wilson's salary from $1.5 million in 2015 to something north of $21 million in 2016, the downside is Wilson would still be without long-term security.

At that point, Wilson's veiled threats of playing baseball may become a reality or at the very least he could use the threat to force a long-term deal.

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By the time Tiger Woods was 26, he had already won eight majors and it seemed like it was just a matter of time before he shattered Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 career major championships. However, Woods won just six more over the next 13 years — including none in the last six years — and now, several injuries and numerous swings later, many think he will never win another.

Even if Woods fails to win another major, he will still finish with the second most major championships of all time. Yet most will look at his career as a huge disappointment. To that end, Woods' legacy may have been better off if his career followed the same arc as Rafael Nadal's.

Like Woods, Nadal has won 14 major championships (grand slams) and injuries appear to have derailed his once seemingly high hopes of catching Roger Federer's record of 17 career grand slams. But unlike Woods, Nadal's chase started much later, with his first grand slam coming in his fifth pro season. Even after he started to win, Nadal's titles were mostly limited to the French Open. It was not until seasons eight through 10 that Nadal broke through at the other Grand Slams and made people wonder if he could chase the record.

Even if Nadal never wins another grand slam — he hasn't advanced past the quarterfinals in the last four — his career will be celebrated. Woods will also be celebrated, but that reverence will also be accompanied by a deeper feeling of "what if?"

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Chambers Bay, the site of this year's US Open, has been driving players crazy. The course is one of the most unusual US Open venues ever, and some players have deemed it excessively difficult.

Amateur golfer Lee McCoy emphasized just how dry and hard the course is in a video he uploaded to Twitter. In it, he dribbles a golf ball like a basketball:

SB Nation's Brendan Porath also walked the course and described the firmness as like "concrete:"

"It's completely unique in so many ways, but after walking around on Tuesday, the one thing that stood out instantly was just how hard the ground was everywhere it was mowed. Walking across the chipping range and practice area felt like a stroll across a concrete parking lot, and it was hard to imagine how some of these balls will ever stop, especially with the slopes on the greens. This video from Lee McCoy, the sectional qualifier from UGA, reinforced just how hardpan everything is out there and rocketed around Twitter."

According to AccuWeather meteorologist Dave Samuhel, the region has been unusually dry since the beginning of May.

The weather has been so remarkably dry, in fact, that the greens have stopped absorbing water in places:

USGA Executive Director Mike Davis, who's in charge of setting up the course, said the course is just as tough as it should be.

"On the eve of the championship the golf course is superb," Davis told Golf Digest's John Strege. "It’s nice and firm and fast. And really, at this point, thankfully, we’re getting blessed with this great weather, it’s really down to managing the firmness. It’s a water management thing. So we’re looking at moisture levels in greens. We’re looking at the firmness of greens. And we’re also looking at what winds might be predicted for tomorrow. So we’ve got it really right where we want it, which is wonderful."

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A lot of pro golfers are fed up with what they feel are excessively difficult conditions at Chambers Bay, the site of this week's US Open.

Chambers Bay is a links course outside Seattle that features dramatic elevation changes, undulating greens, and a bunch of holes that can be totally changed from one day to the next with alterations to tee boxes and pin positions. It's not at all what you'd traditionally expect from a US Open course.

Some players, like Charl Schwartzel, hate it.

"[The greens] roll so badly that a good putt misses and a bad one goes in. That’s the most difficult part for us," Schwartzel told the Guardian. "You practice and a good putt goes in the hole, so you’re going to have to work on accepting what is going to happen out there. You’ll just have to be mentally stronger, I suppose."

While the course has been changed significantly since the US Amateur was held there in 2010, Golf Channel highlights from that tournament will give you a sense of what Schwartzel is talking about when he says the course makes the tournament a crapshoot.

The 12th hole, a drivable par-4 with a massive green, is a good example. In 2010, guys were just firing drives up there, watching it roll all over the place, and hoping it settled near the hole.

It's great. It's like mini golf out here:

Gil Hanse of Fox Sports explained what makes the 12th green so tough in a breakdown of the hole:

"It's probably the most heavily contoured green out here. And I think the thought process from a design standpoint is if you're trying to drive it you have to try to be on the proper quadrant of the green if you're going to make an eagle. If you're hitting a wedge in there, you're going to have an opportunity to be a lot more precise with your ball striking. ... The most three-putts on the golf course will occur on this hole."

While some think this sort of variability devalues the event and introduces too much luck into the equation, Tiger Woods is one of the players who gets the appeal an unpredictable, "fun" US Open:

"You're going to get some funky bounces out there. The ball is going to roll and catch slopes. You're going to see guys hit terrible golf shots and end up in kicking range from the hole. You're going to see guys fire at the flag and get a good one and get a hard bounce and end up in a hard spot. I'm more curious to see how many guys hit sprinklers this week, because the sprinklers are literally sometimes six inches off the green. And some of the hole locations you'll be firing -- if you fire at it, you're flying right over the top of sprinklers to land it. It will be interesting to see how many guys hit it or how many guys just roll the ball off the green and they're on the steps or up against the steps, take a ruling, have to drop it in the bunker and have it buried. Now you're going to have a lot of fun."

A lot of guys are going to hit perfect shots and they're going to roll 120 feet away from the hole. Golf purists may hate that, but it's going to be great to watch.

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"The Blind Side," the award-winning movie detailing NFL offensive lineman Michael Oher's rise from a homeless teenager to an NFL first-round draft pick, was critically acclaimed and a huge box-office success, making over $300 million worldwide.

Despite that positive attention, Oher believes the movie is actually responsible for the excessive criticism he has gotten throughout his career.

"Offensive linemen don't get looked at,'' Oher told ESPN's David Newton. "Nobody is paying attention to the offensive line. But me? I'm getting watched for everything."

Since being drafted 23rd overall back in 2009, Oher has had moderate success in the NFL. After helping the Ravens win Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, Oher left in free agency and signed a five-year, $20 million contract with the Titans. After one injury-plagued and unproductive season, however, he was subsequently released and signed a modest two-year, $7 million deal with the Panthers — his third team in three years.

According to advanced stats from Pro Football Focus, Oher hasn't produced a season with consistent positive grades since his rookie year. While he recognizes he hasn't lived up to his first-round hype coming out of Ole Miss, he believes he is unfairly being labeled a "bust" because of all the extra media attention he receives as a result of "The Blind Side":

People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie. They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am. That's why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field. This stuff, calling me a bust, people saying if I can play or not ... that has nothing to do with football. It's something else off the field. That's why I don't like that movie.

Although Oher has been heavily criticized by Pro Football Focus and other experts, his new teammates have welcomed him with open arms. Panthers tight end Greg Olson called the signing a "huge addition" for Carolina.

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The U.S. Open is always the toughest tournament of the year on the PGA Tour but this year's championship is being played Chambers Bay in University Place, Washington — a course that is only eight years old and is unlike anything that has ever been seen at a U.S. Open.

This has led to some harsh criticism from the players. After playing the course in April, Ryan Palmer said Chambers Bay "is not a championship golf course" in an interview with USA Today.

Listening to the players speak about the course, there are several big reasons the course is going to be tough and why some players hate it.

1. The unknown.

Tiger Woods explained to the media on Tuesday that nobody knows how the USGA organizers will set up the course and it will have a huge impact on how the course is played. In addition to highly variable hole placements on large greens, the course can play anywhere from 7,300-7,900 yards depending on where the USGA decides to set up the tee boxes from day to day.

"It's certainly different for a U.S. Open, that's for sure," Woods told the media. "We normally play pretty traditional golf courses where it's back tees, narrow fairways, high rough, and super-hard, fast greens."

The tee areas on some holes are extremely long, and where the box is set up will have an impact on both yardage ...

... and the angles the players have to use off the tee:

2. It's a links course.

There is only one tree on the entire course, more like the traditional Open Championship courses in Great Britain. There are also large seas of bunkers.

3. But it's a links course unlike any other links course.

"Unlike any links golf we play, we don't have elevation changes like this," said Woods. "You are going to get some funky bounces out there. Balls are going to roll and catch slopes."

4. The greens are large and unforgiving.

The greens are huge and many are predicting that the greens are going to be hard and fast, with Woods describing 70-80-foot putts that have to travel over large mounds.

"The green complexes are something else," Palmer told USA Today. "With some of the pin placements, you will see some guys play it 30 yards left, 30 yards right or 30 yards long, and next thing you know you'll have a 2 footer. Or you'll be 75 feet from the pin ... Every green has like five or six greens on it."

5. It is not even clear where greens start and end.

Some recent warm weather has dried the course, something that has left what appears to be no discernible transition from fairway to green. In some cases, the edges of greens are marked with white markers. 

6. The course is extremely dry.

Graeme McDowell noted that the course is so dry that as fast as the greens are, there are places where the fairways are even faster.

Here is what the 5th hole looked like last August.

And here is what the same hole looks like this week.

7. That speed is also going to have a bigger impact than usual on tee times.

"I think one of the more dramatic things I have noticed is how different it plays from morning to afternoon," Woods said. "It gets so much faster and drier. You just feel it as the day wears on, how much this golf course can dry out and it certainly will. The morning times versus the afternoon times are just very different."

That extra speed may come in handy on the fairways when they are straight. But on the greens and other fairways, like No. 11, it will be nightmare.

8. And don't forget the sprinklers.

Woods said it will be interesting to see how the sprinklers will impact the tournament noting that they are so close to the greens players could land on them and be forced to take a drop.

"Sprinklers are literally sometimes six inches off the green," said Woods. "Some of the hole locations, if you fire at it, you are firing right over sprinklers where you need to land it."

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Now that the 16 spots in the knockout stage of the Women's World Cup have been set, the number of teams with a realistic shot to win it all has dwindled to six, according to the latest model by Nate Silver.

The United States is the favorite with a 33% chance to win the World Cup. That's up from their pre-tournament odds of 28%, when they were in a virtual tie with Germany. The Germans are down slightly from 27% to 25%. No other country has more than a 9% chance to lift the trophy.

When the tournament started, there were seven teams with at least a 5% chance of winning the tournament. Now there are just six (FIFA ranking in parentheses):

• United States (2), 33%
• Germany (1), 25%
• Japan (4), 9%
• Brazil (7), 7%
• Canada (8), 7%
• France (3), 7%

Of the teams still alive, none have seen their chances slip considerably. Sweden, which is down to 3%, was the only country to fall off the list.

The big reason the United States is favored over Germany is that FIFA set up the tournament so that the top-ranked German side will have to face third-ranked France in the quarterfinals if both win their opening matches of the knockout stage.

Meanwhile, the United States has a much easier path to the semifinals with a round-of-16 match against No. 28 Colombia and a quarterfinals date with either No. 16 China or No. 53 Cameroon.

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Jahlil Okafor, a 6-foot-11 center from Duke, has seen his NBA Draft stock drop in the weeks leading up to the draft perhaps more than any other prospect.

Thought to be the No. 1 player for most of the college season, concerns about his defense, conditioning, and fit in a new fast-paced, spread-out NBA have caused him to fall from the No. 1 spot.

Okafor could still go No. 2, but most think he has fallen behind fellow big man Karl-Anthony Towns, and there's enough intrigue with D'Angelo Russell and Kristaps Porzingis that Okafor could drop several spots.

Grantland's Ryen Russillo wrote a tremendous roundup of scouts' takes on the top players in the draft. The scouts echoed many of the same concerns over Okafor, but they also say that there's still reason to be optimistic: Okafor's offense is light years ahead of many other prospects.

In just one year in college, Okafor showed off moves in the low post that would already rank him among one of the NBA's best offensive big men. Additionally, at 19, there's plenty of time for him to learn to correct some of his flaws.

One scout told Russillo:

He’s the best center in college. I see Towns as 4, maybe 5. Okafor is a 5 — no question. He’s an old-school big man. He knows how to use his body. He is going to score from 10-12 feet and in....

The talk of the league going small … that doesn’t mean you don’t want this guy. There is a great advantage to be able to throw it down in the post when jump shots aren’t going. He is the prototype center. Every team would want a player like that. I just think the other two guys are better.

Another scout felt optimistic about how good on offense Okafor is:

I haven’t seen a natural post-up feel like him in a long time. He’s not as fluid as Towns; he doesn’t run the floor like him. More heavy in the lower body, which gives you the impression he’s not as athletic — more heavy-legged. But that is part of his effectiveness. It’s kind of like an optical illusion.

He screws around with a couple of fakes here, then all of a sudden he gets an angle and blows up at the basket and dunks on you. I know everyone wants 3s, but it’s great to have an option to just throw it down there to a guy that demands a double-team. He’s unselfish — he’ll give it up. He plays the right way.

In April, SI's Pete Thamel wrote about the Towns-versus-Okafor debate, and quoted one scout who felt Okafor's skillset was too good to pass up on:

"There’s probably only five to seven guys in the NBA who can play with their back to the basketball like Okafor," says a Western Conference front office official who contends he would take Okafor at No. 1. "Towns has better upside and could be a better player, but I’d like to think I can get another Towns before I can get another Okafor."

While Okafor has struggled with defense, there's belief he can be taught to be at least an average defender, which would support his dominant offense. This type of skill from a 19 year old is just too deadly:

It seems clear that Towns has become the No. 1 player, but ESPN's Chad Ford reports that Minnesota Timberwolves GM Flip Saunders wants to pick Okafor while the rest of his staff wants Towns.

If Saunders' staff wins out and the Wolves take Towns, it'll be interesting to see where Okafor lands. Are teams afraid his defense can't be improved and his offense won't translate, or will teams value his potentially transcendent offense and work with whatever other flaws he may have?

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LeBron James wasn't able to win an NBA championship in his first season back in Cleveland, but his return boosted the Cavaliers' revenue significantly.

With James back on the team, the Cavaliers saw their revenue jump 45% this season compared to the 2013-14 season, according to Sports Business Daily.

That translates to an estimated 2014-15 revenue of $216 million, a $67 million increase from the season before, based on a 2013-14 revenue estimation of $149 million by Forbes.com.

Of course, not all of that is profit since James carried a salary of $20.6 million. However, according to Spotrac.com, the Cavs' payroll commitments in 2014-15 ($81.4 million) were only $15.2 million higher than the year before ($66.2 million).

While there were reasons to doubt the $500 million impact some touted for the city of Cleveland, the impact James had on the bottom line for the Cavs is undoubtedly real.

The Cavs finished second in the NBA in average attendance in 2014-15, compared to 16th the year before.

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Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler could be one the first NBA free agents to negotiate a short-term deal in order to capitalize on the league's coming salary cap explosion. 

Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reports that Butler is expected to turn down a $90 million max contract offer from the Bulls in order to position himself for more money in the long term.

In October, the NBA reached a new TV deal with TNT and ESPN. NBA teams will split $2.66 billion per year under the new deal, up $930 million under the old one.

As a result, the NBA salary cap is going to jump from $67 million in 2015-16 to $89 million in 2016-17, and only go up from there. If Butler signs, for example, a two-year deal with a team this summer, he'll be a free agent again in 2017 and have a chance to sign a long-term deal under the new salary cap.

While there are obviously risks in signing a short-term deal (injury, declining play, etc.) the reward could be massive. Butler's current max contract starts at 25% of the 2015-16 salary cap, which works out to around $17 million. By 2017, his max contract will start at around $27 million.

While Butler can only sign a five-year, $90 million contract now, in three years he could potentially sign a five-year deal for $190 million, Wojnarowski reports.

This wouldn't be the first time Butler has bet on himself in hopes of winning big. During the exclusive contract negotiations window in October, he reportedly turned down the Bulls' contract extension offer of four years and $44 million— which at the time looked like a fair price for a player who had only just finished his first full year as a starter and shot below 40 percent from the field, 28 percent from behind the arc, and averaged only 13 points per game.

Butler, however, believed he was worth more and proved it. He went on to have the best season of his career by far, finishing with 20 points per game and shooting 46 percent form the field and nearly 38 percent from the three-point line, as well as being named to the All-Star team for the first time.

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