The heights they are reaching have become comical, two golfers taking over their respective sports with such dominance that — at least for this moment — it’s difficult to imagine anyone beating them.

Nelly Korda just won her fifth straight start, ending with a major, the Chevron Championship. Scottie Scheffler just won four of five starts with a Masters in the middle. The men’s and women’s world No. 1s are no longer just the best players in their sport. They are becoming two of the best ever. It’s reached the point Scheffler was playfully asked this week in Hilton Head if the two of them are in a competition.

“I don’t know, man,” he joked, “I think if it’s a competition she’s got me pretty beat right now. Five wins in a row. She had that T16 at the beginning of the year, which was just terrible. I can’t believe she did that.”

And with their runs of greatness has come a fun little trend: Who can post the most ridiculous, impressive statistics or notes to quantify how incredible their golf has been in 2024.

“The best five weeks since this.”

“The most strokes gained since that.”

It’s become so extreme and entertaining that we decided, hey, let’s make a list of the most impressive and telling notes on Scheffler’s and Korda’s historic runs.

1.…

Welcome to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the story behind the stories from the last week on court.

This week, the European clay swing kicked off in earnest across the ATP and WTA tours, with tournaments in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Romania. The four best women’s players faced off in Stuttgart, Barcelona witnessed the return of Rafael Nadal, and we saw a serve from zero gravity.

If you’d like more tennis coverage, please click here.

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Are the WTA and ATP tours swapping their metas?

For the past year, there’s been some chatter about a ‘Big Four’ forming in women’s tennis. It was a ‘Big Three’, comprised of Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka, but then Coco Gauff won the U.S. Open and became a seriously consistent presence in the business end of tournaments, including the semi-finals of the Australian Open. She also climbed to No 3 in the rankings. At the same time, the rapid emergence of Carlos Alcaraz, succeeded by the slower burn of Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev being Daniil Medvedev, and the elastic continuity of Novak Djokovic forged new rivalries on the ATP tour.

The last few months have thrown a wrench into that thinking. Despite being without a Grand Slam title since last year’s French Open, Swiatek…

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Chris Paul is 11 hours from his 19th NBA season ending. He’s less than a month from turning 39. He takes a seat in the third row of Golden 1 Center after the Golden State Warriors’ morning shootaround in Sacramento. Later that night, the Sacramento Kings blow them out 118-94, an elimination that also throws into question Paul’s immediate future.

But this much is clear: Paul is not retiring. He will play a 20th NBA season somewhere.

“I’ll talk to my wife and my kids, my family, my support system, see what it looks like,” Paul told The Athletic. “But this isn’t (the end of my career). I know it for sure.”

Paul remains under contract for the Warriors next season, but there’s a necessary caveat. All $30 million of his deal is non-guaranteed. Part of the Warriors’ reasoning behind the Jordan Poole for Paul trade last offseason was the financial flexibility it would provide this summer. The Warriors can use it as a trade vehicle or wipe all $30 million off the books before it guarantees on June 28.

Those options and decisions will be explored in the coming weeks. But Joe Lacob and the Warriors’ ownership group have already indicated a desire to avoid the second apron and even duck the luxury tax entirely, resetting the repeater clock….

Connor Bedard wasn’t nervous when he pulled on a Team Canada sweater and stepped onto the ice at the World Junior championships, the weight of a hockey-mad country’s expectations resting squarely on his shoulders. He wasn’t nervous when NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly kept flipping over placards with NHL team logos on them after the draft lottery, Bedard’s fate and his future resting face-down at the bottom of the pile. Honestly, he wasn’t even all that nervous the first time he donned a Chicago Blackhawks jersey in a real game and settled in at the opening faceoff dot against his idol, Pittsburgh Penguins megastar Sidney Crosby.

Hockey’s familiar. Hockey’s comfortable. Connor Bedard knows hockey.

But standing in the entryway of Nick Foligno’s house in Chicago on a September evening, fidgeting and shuffling and making meager attempts at small talk with Nick and his wife, Janelle, who had invited the new guy over for a nice family dinner?

Yeah, Bedard was nervous.

“I don’t think (it’s) intimidating,” Bedard said of his first forays into the world of grown-ups. “I didn’t know anyone, so you’re kind of nervous about that. Just how I’m going to fit in and stuff.”

The way Foligno remembers it, Bedard quickly started talking about hockey and seemed…

The most anticipated WNBA Draft in recent memory has come and gone. Once again, it was a franchise-changing day for the Indiana Fever, who drafted Caitlin Clark. Meanwhile, several teams made meaningful investments in their futures while others fine-tuned in their pursuit of a championship in the near term.

Let’s take a look at how well each team accomplished its goals in the 2024 WNBA Draft. The grades are a little bit higher across the board than last year, but this was a better pool of players. I’m allowing for some optimism.

Nyadiew Puoch (12), Isabel Borlase (20), Matilde Villa (32)

The Dream made three international selections, all of whom are 19 years old, and none of whom project to play in the WNBA during the 2024 season. As such, it’s hard to say if Atlanta addressed any of its needs because by the time these players come over, the roster could look dramatically different. Big picture, Puoch and Borlase were rated as first-round talents by the general managers The Athletic surveyed, so to pick up both with only one first-round pick is good value. But the Dream have a chance to get better right now with Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray rating among the better perimeter duos in the league, and they punted on a chance for immediate improvement, even if this trio of…

In November, U.S. Soccer gambled that it was worth sacrificing a year of continuous preparation under a permanent manager to hire Emma Hayes. For eight months following the 2023 World Cup, interim management has overseen the U.S. women’s national team. To her credit, Twila Kilgore’s tenure as placeholder helped turn over the player pool and saw her team win a pair of tune-up competitions this spring.

Still, it’s been a lost year for the program at a time when it was in sore need of a clear new vision. Hayes’ first games as USWNT manager in June are still two months away, bringing the post-World Cup interlude to 10 months — and a full seven months from her appointment in November.

With the CONCACAF W Gold Cup and SheBelieves Cup in the rearview, it’s time to take stock. Is the program any better prepared to contend at the Paris Olympics than it was when Sweden knocked it out of the World Cup?

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The 2023 World Cup cycle (and, by association, the Vlatko Andonovski era) stands out as the low point for the USWNT on the field.

The belated 2020 Olympics was a warning sign, as an aging core entered with varying levels of fitness amidst the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The team played every game in empty stadia, a far cry from the raucous support it so often enjoys in…

McKenna Whitham scored against Deportivo Cali in added time at the Women’s Cup in Colombia in February, finding her footing in a sea of defenders and tucking the ball away to send Gotham FC to the finals of the four-day preseason tournament.

The goal was the 13-year-old’s first in a professional environment, and it came after weeks of preseason training with the NWSL defending champions. Whitham, who goes by Mak, was unfazed.

“It’s just been spectacular,” she told The Athletic following her preseason debut. “I’ve always kind of been playing up at a high level, so I’ve just been motivated to be the best and just give 100% effort, and, I mean, just because they’re older, it doesn’t scare me.”

The teen has made a name for herself already, garnering headlines for being the youngest women’s soccer player to sign an NIL deal with Nike. In doing so, she joined a roster filled with well-established college stars, like Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, and followed the path forged by Angel City’s Alyssa and Gisele Thompson, who in 2022 became the first high schoolers to sign an NIL deal with the sportswear giant.

GO DEEPER

Sixteen-year-old Pfeiffer becomes NWSL’s youngest scorer

Whitham continued training with Gotham as the team prepared for its 2024 season and, on the eve…

Caitlin Clark’s college career ended Sunday with a loss to South Carolina in the national championship. But the Iowa star’s popularity won’t be going away.

“I know what’s next is soon,” she said.

Eight days, to be exact.

That’s when Clark will be in New York for the WNBA Draft, where she’s expected to be the No. 1 pick by the Indiana Fever. After rising to national prominence during her collegiate career, there are already signs that she will make an impact in the professional league.

What to know about the WNBA Draft

The draft will take place at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York at 7:30 p.m. (ET) on April 15. ESPN will air the draft and it will also stream on Fubo.
Here’s the first-round order of the draft:

1. Indiana Fever
2. Los Angeles Sparks
3. Chicago Sky (via Phoenix)
4. Los Angeles Sparks (via Seattle)
5. Dallas Wings (via Chicago)
6. Washington Mystics
7. Minnesota Lynx
8. Chicago Sky (via Atlanta)
9. Dallas Wings
10. Connecticut Sun
11. New York Liberty
12. Atlanta Dream (via Las Vegas)

What kind of impact will Clark make in the WNBA?

Let’s start on the court. Clark will have to work harder for her shot, of course. (Don’t…

Susie Wolff’s quiet confidence is evident the moment you meet her.

She’s ambitious and bold, not afraid to fight for something she believes in. And when her character came into question when the FIA launched an inquiry into allegations of conflict of interest last year, Wolff pushed back, filing a criminal complaint last month in relation to the governing body’s statements.

To understand why she’s pursuing legal action, one first must understand Wolff herself, a woman whose name has become synonymous with the fight for women in motorsport. Born Susie Stoddart, the Scot has worn many hats over the years, navigating the motorsport ranks as a driver before entering the management side, now serving as the managing director of the all-women series F1 Academy.

Wolff’s story is one defined by tenacity, starting from a small town in Scotland and morphing into a journey of showing how women belong and can be successful in what’s still considered “a man’s world.”

“Someone said to me many years ago, dream and dream big. But always have a plan because of a dream without a plan, that’s called a wish,” she said in Las Vegas last year. “You need to know how you’re gonna achieve your dreams and have the tenacity to make them happen.”

The rise of a ‘calculated’…