Jason Day forced out of Tour Championship with back injury

WORLD No. 1 Jason Day has withdrawn after seven holes of his second round at the Tour Championship thanks to a recurring back injury.

Day was just three shots behind the lead but in the midst of making a mess of the eighth hole when he decided to pull the pin, ending his chances at the season long FedEx Cup and US$10 million bonus.

Day suffered an annulus ligament tear in a disc in his back at the BMW Championship less than two weeks ago but attempted to chase the season long title this week.

While he sat just one shot off the lead after the first round the complaint flared up once more, forcing a mostly precautionary early exit. “Just not enough time to get it rested,” Day told PGATOUR.com as he left. His management team released a short statement soon after.

“Jason has a strained ligament in his lower right back with muscle spasm,” the statement read.

“He withdrew as a precautionary measure. Jason should be fine with some rest after a long break in the off-season.” Day was travelling okay with one birdie and one bogey through seven holes before things came unravelled at the eighth.

After his tee shot found the water he attempted to hit driver off the deck from the rough and found tree trouble.

After another shot left him off the green he picked up the ball and started walking into the clubhouse, leaving the premises in haste.

“There was a couple of drives out there where — just off the top of the transition, felt a bit of a sharp pain in my back,” Day has said after round one.

“When I get to the top of the swing, as soon as my hips start to unfold and then there’s that bit of separation, it just crunches down. It just hurts.” With countryman Adam Scott struggling in the second round the chances of an Australian victory are now extremely slim.

Dustin Johnson continues his impressive form and now appears a certainly to beat Day to Player of the Year honours.

Both have three wins on the season but Johnson claimed a major at the US Open. He also is in the box seat to make it four wins and add the FedEx Cup. Johnson is three under on his second round through 13 holes to push to seven under for the tournament, now one clear at the top.

Fellow American Kevin Chappell (12 holes) sits second at six under with Si Woo Kim (13 holes), Kevin Kisner (13 holes) and Hideki Matsuyama (12 holes) tied third at three under.

Scott is two over on his round through 16 holes to drop to one-over and into a tie for 12th in the now 29-man event.

Day is not due to play again until the Australian Open in Sydney and World Cup of Golf in Melbourne in November.

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NASCAR's decision to change rules draws mixed reaction from drivers

The call earlier this week not to penalize the teams of drivers Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson draws a mixed reaction from fellow competitors in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage.

Earlier this week, NASCAR decided not to penalize Chicagoland Speedway winner Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson after their respective cars both flunked post-race tech on NASCAR's laser inspection station, or LIS.

Both cars flunked the LIS at the lowest of three possible thresholds. Normally, that's a 10-point penalty.

Because Truex won the race, the first event of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, he automatically will advance to the second round of NASCAR's playoffs. A 10-point penalty would not change that.

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However, a 10-point penalty for Johnson could -- key word being "could" -- mean the difference between him advancing or not advancing into Round 2.

So on Wednesday, NASCAR announced it would not penalize either driver, because the same penalty wouldn't carry the same consequences for Truex and Johnson.

In addition, NASCAR changed its LIS rules. The low-level infractions are gone. Now, there's only one level of penalty, what NASCAR's calls a P4 penalty. Flunk the LIS now and a P4 penalty will essentially eliminate a competitor's chances to win the championship.

Also, all cars still in the Chase will go through LIS after every race.

Faced with a potentially bad situation NASCAR made the best call it could under the circumstances. Not surprisingly, not everyone views the decision the same way.

Matt Kenseth, the 2003 Sprint Cup champion, said Friday he's conflicted about the news.

"Personally, I'm okay with the change," said Kenseth, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing. "I feel like maybe we should have changed it a couple months ago. I'm okay with that going forward, but I'm not so sure how I feel about no penalties because we all knew what the rules were last Sunday and what the penalties were if you broke those rules and then to come out a week later and say, 'Okay, well, we changed our mind. There isn't those penalties for the rules.'

"I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm okay with the rules being changes going forward," said Kenseth. "I'm always okay with whatever they want to come up with as rules as long as we all know what they are ahead of time and we all know what the penalties are ahead of time for breaking those rules."

Truex, who as a driver for Furniture Row Racing is Kenseth's quasi-teammate, had a wholly different take on NASCAR's actions.

"I think NASCAR made a really smart decision this week," said Truex. "I think that it's definitely better for the sport as a whole. We can continue to talk about what great racing we're having and not 10-thousandths off on a laser that's inconsistent."

Carl Edwards, who like Kenseth drives for JGR, seemed to agree with Truex.

"They (NASCAR) police this sport the way that we have asked them to police it," said Edwards. "We want to know that we're racing other cars evenly and that nobody has an advantage, but then you get put in these situations like what happened last week where the penalties are really unequal and I think NASCAR did a good job responding to that and I feel like we're going to go through this Chase and we're going to have as fair a Chase as we can and that's good."

As to Truex's inference that the laser system is inconsistent, one top driver weighed in on that topic earlier this week.

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Jose Mourinho denies Arsene Wenger issue after quotes saying he would 'break his face

Jose Mourinho says he has no problem with Arsene Wenger despite the publication of a book which quotes him as saying he would "break his face".

Manchester United's manager has had a long-running rivalry with the Frenchman which dates back to when he managed Chelsea and he once called the Arsenal boss a "specialist in failure".

Asked if he felt let down by Beasley putting the quote in the public domain, Mourinho, whose United side face Leicester, live on Sky Sports 1 HD on Saturday, said: "You can see how close he was [to me]. I am happy. He made his money, that's fine. That's fine for me.

"I met Arsene Wenger a couple of weeks ago and, like civilised people, we shook hands. We sat on the same table, we had a dinner together with other people.

"We exchanged ideas, we were speaking because we are civilised people. Again, I don't think the book will be in the gallery of the Shakespeares and so on.

"I prefer just to not comment. That's my last word about it and again, I repeat, he is making his money. That's fine for me." 

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Queen of Katwe review: an exceptional underdog sports story that breaks the rule

Queen of Katwe never focuses much on individual matches, opponents, or play styles, beyond noting that once Mutesi understands the rules of the game, she plays with a confrontational aggression that's rare for a girl her age. The film also doesn't take much interest in chess specifics or strategies, beyond highlighting pawn promotion, when a piece crosses the entire board and is upgraded to a more powerful piece, like a knight or queen. "In chess, the small one can become the big one. That's why I like it," says the tiny pugnacious girl assigned to teach Mutesi the rules of the game. The film doesn't miss the symbolism, as Mutesi works toward her own life upgrades.Queen of Katwe takes the first of many unusual steps when some of the other chess kids mock Mutesi for being grimy and smelling bad, and she physically attacks them. Coach Katende doesn't step in to defend her or stop her. If anything, he approves of her spirited response: "This is a place for fighters," he says. He's a practical teacher whose chess lessons come with life lessons, about planning ahead and learning mental discipline. He knows his students are rough around the edges, and he doesn't try to polish or soften them. He just encourages them to learn, and tries to give them opportunities to prove themselves by enrolling them in competitions against elite schools, and eventually in international programs.
Queen of Katwe is visibly a Disney movie, full of feel-good moments and kid-accessible humor. It isn't entirely immune to the idea of Africa as a colorful, exotic backdrop, and it isn't entirely free of broad, overstated messages. Its most artificially dramatic sequence, involving a flood, drags on too long without adding anything to the core narrative. But the film is still an endlessly entertaining surprise, in its gravity and its lightheartedness, and in the way it skirts the most obvious sports movie clichés. In an increasingly globalized culture, this kind of story must happen all the time, with small-town people finding that a specific talent or interest suddenly makes them into big-time celebrities. Nair's film is a joyous triumph in the way it makes the story accessible, without losing sight of the specifics that make it not just a true story, but a complete and real one.But Nair's biggest triumph is in capturing the energy of life in Katwe in a way that feels natural and knowledgeable. It comes in broad strokes, like the soundtrack packed with actual Ugandan pop, hip-hop, and dancehall artists who boost the movie's tempo. It comes in little touches, like the triumphant finger-snap gestures Mutesi and her fellow players use to celebrate their victories. And it especially comes in the way she lets so many members of the sprawling cast develop into characters in their own right. The screenplay (by William Wheeler, who also wrote Nair's 2012 movie The Reluctant Fundamentalist) gives a clear and immediate sense of Mutesi's character, and how she develops confidence and strength as her chess skills progress. But Wheeler also gives significant time to her proud, stubborn mother (whom Nyong'o plays with a beautifully passionate weariness), to her striving siblings, each looking for their own hustle and escape routes, and to Coach Katende, who has to balance the endless needs of his students with his own family. The filmmakers even make time for the other chess kids, who glare at each other over chess boards like solemn, icy junior Kasparovs, but sometimes break down in hysterics when they lose. The stakes are high and the situation is serious, but under their game faces, they're still just children.

Mira Nair’s inspirational chess drama Queen of Katwe is remarkable in the simplest but most profound way: it’s an American film about Africa that doesn’t feel like it was made by tourists. The film, based on the life of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi, was partially shot in the Kampala slum of Katwe, where Mutesi grew up. Nair, the Indian-born, New York-based director of Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake, has worked in Kampala before. She shot part of her filmMississippi Masala there. She met her Ugandan husband during that shoot. And she subsequently founded a small Kampala film school, with a focus on helping young Ugandans tell their own stories in cinema. American films set in African countries tend to focus on white characters witnessing atrocities, and they usually treat Africa as an exotic, dangerous backdrop. Nair knows better. She has deep roots in Uganda, and they’ve given her enough experience and insight that she’s able to treat Katwe’s residents as people first, and parts of a familiar narrative second.

Which helps explain why Queen of Katwe is so unconventional, both as an underdog sports story and as a biopic. Walt Disney Studios produced the film, and it has the cherubically light, cheery gloss of a Disney production. But it also deals frankly with crippling poverty and systemic class issues. There’s no easy, definitive way out of the slum for Mutesi, no single big chess competition that will let her defeat some smarmy villain and permanently secure her future. This is the kind of uplifting story where devotion to a sport creates friendships and changes lives. But it’s the rare uplift story that also acknowledges the complexities of real life and real competition. It brings in all the triumph and satisfaction of a conventional sports movie while skipping the conventional routine.

Queen of Katwe covers a period between 2007, when Mutesi discovered chess, and 2011, when she traveled to Siberia for the international Chess Olympiad, at age 14. Madina Nalwanga (a first-time actor who was born in the Katwe region, and had a childhood similar to Mutesi's) initially plays Mutesi as a stubborn, bullish young girl who's hesitant to speak around other people, but fights back ferociously when bullied. She and her older sister Night (Taryn Kyaze) and their younger brothers are growing up in a single-room hut, selling maize on the street to help their widowed mother Nakku (12 Years a Slave Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o) keep food on the table. When Mutesi follows her younger brother to a church mission program where Coach Robert Katende (Selma star David Oyelowo) teaches chess to Katwe's kids, she's initially just curious. Then she stays for the free porridge. Her interest in the actual game comes later. At first, hanging around the mission is just another step toward getting enough food to survive.

(Walt Disney Pictures)

Queen of Katwe is painfully practical about the difficulties she faces in trying to leverage her chess skills into the notoriety she needs to acquire sponsors and an education. The film's most poignant moments deal with the disappointments she faces when she has to come back from an international chess tourney to face the Katwe slums again, and to deal with setbacks like eviction, her sister Night running off with an older man, and a hospitalization her family can't afford. To Nair's credit, she doesn't play these events as operatic tragedies; they're the backdrop of a normal life for people growing up with limited resources and options. But the real-life struggles Mutesi faces stand in stark contrast to the abstract tactical ones on the board, where she's more capable of controlling the outcome. Without getting granular about the individual moves, Nair manages to make these chess matches riveting, because they stand in for so many other conflicts in Mutesi's life.

Queen of Katwe is visibly a Disney movie, full of feel-good moments and kid-accessible humor. It isn't entirely immune to the idea of Africa as a colorful, exotic backdrop, and it isn't entirely free of broad, overstated messages. Its most artificially dramatic sequence, involving a flood, drags on too long without adding anything to the core narrative. But the film is still an endlessly entertaining surprise, in its gravity and its lightheartedness, and in the way it skirts the most obvious sports movie clichés. In an increasingly globalized culture, this kind of story must happen all the time, with small-town people finding that a specific talent or interest suddenly makes them into big-time celebrities. Nair's film is a joyous triumph in the way it makes the story accessible, without losing sight of the specifics that make it not just a true story, but a complete and real one.

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Meth-related crimes in Montana

For the past week, Butte has been home to the Tony Sawyer murder case. Monday, Sawyer was found guilty of deliberate homicide in the shooting death of 37-year-old Joe Powers. The deadly altercation happened over the use  of meth. 

Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff Ed Lester said this case is just another example of how meth related crimes have increased. Therefore, his agency sees violence and as well as property crimes also increase. 

"We are starting see and have seen in the past two-three years a couple of homicides are methamphetamine certainly played a role in," said Lester.

Lester said their new K-9 unit, which he said, has been very effective in solving and investigating drug related crimes.

"The new program the K-9 has been affective in apprehending people who are in possession methamphetamine. So and again we work with the Southwest Montana Drug Task Force as far as enforcement," said Lester.  

Another organization continuing to combat meth in Montana is the Montana Meth Project. They said Montana currently rank 39th in the nation for meth abuse but their mission continues to change that ranking. 

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