Meet Golfers Who Are Richest Players in The World

Whom do you assume to be the richest players in the world: football players or, maybe, successful NBA players? To find the answer, we have to turn towards golf. No doubt, golf requires a lot of expensive equipment in order to start training, and for quite a long period of time it was a kind of elitist game for the rich. However, times have changed, and now golf has become more available to the vast masses. Still, it is easier to find the richest sportsmen among golf players than among any other representatives of the field. Let us have a quick look at the five most wealthy golf players in the world.

Phil Mickelson with a $46 million fortune takes the 5th position on our list. As many successful sportsmen, Phil started playing golf at the university. He was quickly noticed and got a full golf scholarship that allowed him to continue training. It is interesting to know that Mickelson won his first PGA while still being a junior player. Ernie Els, with $65 million, goes next. In total, he has won 19 PGA titles and 28 European titles. Els also won the Open Championship 4 times in total—in 1994, 1997, 2002, and 2012.

Professional player number three with a total fortune of $75 million by estimate is Vijay Singh. Vijay is a professional player from Fiji. He started playing at an early age since his father was a golf instructor, and soon proved his incredible abilities in this sport.

Player number two, Fred Couples, has earned $105 million by playing golf. Fred won the biggest and the most famous golf tournament—Masters Tournament—on the peak of his career. He has won 63 games in total and has earned 13 achievements and awards.

And now we introduce the player with the total of $700 million in net assets: Tiger Woods! He is definitely one of the richest players in the world not only in golf but also compared with other sportsmen. He won the Masters Tournament 4 times as well as 119 European and PGA titles, yet his career is not over, unlike Fred Couples’. Looking at all these figures, we are wondering, maybe we should try golf?

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Michael Jordan Named Greatest Basketball Player Once Again

Choosing the greatest sports team or sportsman has always been a difficult task due to the lack of unity among the sport fans. Every fan claims their favorite team is the best, and all attempts to change their mind are useless. On the other hand, if many sports enthusiasts agree on one candidate to be called the best athlete ever, it is one of the most honorable titles that can be earned. There is little dispute about calling Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player.  However, would it be fair towards other sportsmen to call Jordan not only the best basketball player but also the best athlete?

As a recent Harris poll shows, Jordan was chosen as the best sportsman of all times by approximately 2,500 Americans who participated in the questionnaire. Jordan has managed to keep the top place since 2009, for almost six years now, when Harris conducted the same questionnaire. Michael is one of the two basketball players and one of the nine male athletes on the 2015 list. Brett Favre, Hank Williams, and Ted Williams, who were in the top-10 of the list, fell off it in the 2015 poll.

Though Michael Jordan retired almost ten years ago, his biography on the official NBA site states he is the greatest basketball player in the whole world. Jordan started playing basketball in college, and soon he entered his first professional NBA team, Chicago Bulls. During that time, Jordan gained his nicknames (Air Jordan or His Airness) due to the incredible ability to perform perfect slam dunks from the foul line. Also, he gained the title of the best defense player in the field.

During his sports career, Jordan earned 2 Olympic gold medals, 1 FIBA gold medal, and 1 Pan American Games gold medal. In total, he earned more than 70 awards and titles while playing basketball. Probably, this is the reason Jordan stays the best basketball player and the best sportsman of all times even ten years after his retirement. Jordan became an icon player and was one of the key factors that influenced the popularization of basketball around the world in 1980s-1990s. He is likely to remain number one for at least five more years.

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A Cocky Kid's Dream Crumbles in Sobering 'Lenny Cooke' Film

Before YouTube provided endless mixtapes of teenage basketball stars, before LeBron James changed amateur basketball forever to fuel a 24/7 appetite for online updates on hot prospects, Lenny Cooke was basketball's next big thing.
Cooke, a 6-foot-6-inch swingman out of Brooklyn, was the nation's top player, seemingly on the fast track to NBA fame and riches. But he never made it.


That disconnect is the subject of Lenny Cooke, a powerful documentary exploring the dark reality of prodigious promise gone unfulfilled.

Seeing a bloated Cooke rationalize his basketball demise is sobering

Seeing a bloated Cooke rationalize his basketball demise is sobering indeed after watching him confidently interact with future NBA stars including James and Carmelo Anthony as a teen. The film is aided tremendously by the fact that directors Ben and Joshua Safdie are able to use prime footage of Cooke as a high schooler that was shot by Adam Shopkorn in the early 2000s for a never-completed documentary about the young star. That old footage provides a fascinating, surreal and sometimes disturbing window into Cooke's life as a basketball prodigy. We see him treat future NBA stars as peers or younger brothers. (One of his old friends, Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls, produced Lenny Cooke.) We see the eye-popping skills that built his reputation. We see the tough neighborhood where he grew up and the white suburban mom with whom he lived in his late teens. But we also see him sullenly brush off coaches' advice and party like an adult while in Las Vegas for a tournament.
The trove of old content makes the film's final 25 minutes all the more powerful. Cooke throws himself a 30th birthday party, ending the night on the couch drunkenly scooping food into his mouth in front of the TV. He briefly reunites with Noah and other players on the Madison Square Garden floor after a recent New York Knicks game, an encounter that contrasts Cooke's current circumstance with what might have been. And an emotional argument with friends he rarely sees anymore is a painful reminder of how much has changed since they were all cocky teenagers.

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Dennis Rodman to Train North Korea National Basketball Team

Eccentric former NBA star Dennis Rodman's budding bromance with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has taken its next step, with Rodman reportedly traveling to the country's capital city of Pyongyang to train its national basketball team.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The occasion this time around? A supposedly star-studded exhibition game between the North Korean national team and an "NBA all-stars team" to commemorate Kim's 31st birthday in early January. The match is sponsored by an Irish online betting company called Paddy Power. Rodman will train the North Korean squad for its matchup against the NBA side.

Rodman's first trip to the secretive, isolated dictatorship took place this spring. It was billed as a "basketball diplomacy mission" by sponsoring media company Vice, which turned the voyage into a decidedly surreal episode in its HBO news magazine series.

The trip was capped by a through-the-looking-glass moment in which Rodman appeared on ABCand implored President Barack Obama to call him. Rodman said he could help foster an understanding between Obama and Rodman's new friend Kim, who grew up as a huge fan of Rodman's championship Chicago Bulls teams.

Rodman's return comes at particularly volatile time for North Korea. Kim's uncle, once a trusted advisor and mentor to the current leader, was executed last week after accusations of treason and fatuous debauchery. An 85-year-old Korean War veteran from the United States was released and repatriated this month after being detained for over a month while on vacation.

The United States government has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, and strongly advises American citizens against traveling there. Earlier this year, North Korea engaged in some nuclear brinksmanship with the Obama administration.

Kim's birthday basketball exhibition is backed by both Paddy Power and a Beijing-based company called Koryo Tours. A Paddy Power spokesperson told The New York Times on Tuesday that Rodman would arrive in North Korea via Beijing on Thursday with a documentary film crew in tow, then stay in the country until next Monday.

On its website, Koryo Tours offers an "all inclusive" multi-day travel package to North Korea for the exhibition match taking place "on the auspicious date of January 8th (DPRK Leader Kim Jong Un’s birthday)."

The site also promises an all-star lineup of NBA legends, and says Rodman will release the roster in the near future. The five-day travel package is listed for a price of 6,500 Euros.

Rodman's Hall of Fame NBA career lasted 14 season, but his on-court exploits were often overshadowed by his antics off of it. He battled substance abuse, clashed with authority figures and married actress Carmen Electra in a highly publicized but short-lived affair.

Contacted by the Associated Press late last week, Rodman had this to say about his upcoming training mission:

Yes, I'm going to North Korea to train the basketball team. I'm going to bring American players over there. Yes I am. I'm going to be the most famous person in the world when you see American people holding hands and hoping the doors can be opened. If they can. If they can. If they can. I'm going. I'm going back for his birthday. Special.

"Special" — that's certainly one way to describe it.

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NBA Star Plays Spontaneous Santa for Young Fan With Special Needs

A spontaneous touching moment between NBA star Zach Randolph and a young fan with special needs will get you in the holiday spirit.
Randolph is known as something of a tough guy around the league. But he showed his softer side on Wednesday night, when his Memphis Grizzlies took on the Oklahoma City Thunder. He made like an overgrown, basketball-playing Santa Claus when giving the young fan the shirt off his back — literally — upon request.
You can see the heartwarming YouTube clip, which has been making the rounds Thursday, above.

Sports! YouTube! 2013's 10 Hottest Videos

That's not the only adorable interaction between pro sports stars and kids to hit the web recently. The NHL uploaded this clip starring Charlie Coyle of the Minnesota Wild to YouTube on Sunday. The reaction a simple wave from Coyle provokes in one young fan is well worth watching:

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When Swag Goes Wrong: Nick Young's Hilarious Layup Fail

Nick Young of the Los Angeles Lakers isn't a huge star, but he is a talented young NBA player. He's flashy both on and off the court, going by the nickname "Swaggy P."
But swag is a volatile compound, which Young demonstrated on Sunday night with one of the more preposterous NBA layup fails in recent memory. Driving the right baseline, Young forsook a simple shot attempt to spin 360 degrees under the rim and try something more remarkable. Something more exciting — more swaggy.

 

Wait, did we say it didn't go well? On second thought, we couldn't have asked for anything more. God bless you, Swaggy P. God bless you indeed, young man.

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