- Did
any of the spectators at the Greenbrier Classic know who George McNeill was
before this weekend? Probably not, but they’re good friends now. McNeill
started the ball rolling on a nice payout at the PGA Tour’s stop in West
Virginia thanks to a stipulation that any ticket holder seated at the par-3
18th hole earn a cash payout for up to the first three holes-in-one for the event.
The payouts are $100 per fan for the first ace, $500 for the second and $1,000
for the third and with his hole-in-one in the morning, McNeill earned
spectators a grand total of $18,900, delivered straight from Greenbrier resort
owner Jim Justice. "A lot of new friends on 18," McNeill said with a
laugh after his round. “They were all thanking me as I walked off." The
excitement didn’t end after that bit of good fortune, as fellow relative
unknown Justin Thomas aced the hole with a pitching wedge. The cheers were even
louder because Thomas' shot netted $173,500 for the folks in the bleachers,
which meant a grand total of $192,400 handed out during the day. Two aces in
one round made for a dramatic rest of the afternoon and with the possibility of
$1,000 per spectator for the final ace, fans were packed into the seating
section, chanting, "Hole-in-one! Hole-in-one!" That approach didn’t help
any of the remaining competitors hole out, but the offer remains in place for
the entire tournament because by the magnanimous and munificent spirit of
Justice, he sweepstakes carries over to each day. "I guess there aren't
too many places that can get into the position to do what Mr. Justice is
doing," Thomas said. "It's really cool that he does that.” It’s one
of the only reasons to drive to Middle of Nowhere, West Virginia for a golf
tournament on a holiday weekend, which makes it best for business……….
- Sometimes
you have to respect a man’s chutzpah, even if that chutzpah led him to commit a
felony. Kelvin Dennison may be defined by the law
as a criminal because he allegedly pocketed $1,212 in a daytime bank robbery
and was picked up by New York City police officers at a hospital two days after
he rolled into a Santander Bank branch in Queens Monday afternoon and claimed
to be armed, but a dude in a wheelchair who still believes that he can pull off
that sort of brazen heist is rocking a brass pair. "Give me all you
have," he told a teller, according to court papers. "I have a
gun." The teller did as tellers are supposed to do in such cases, handing
over the cash and allowing the police to handle the situation from there.
Dennison allegedly pushed himself out of the bank and then fled down the street
in his wheelchair, proving that he was clearly working alone because otherwise,
someone with a special van equipped with a chair lift would have been waiting
outside the help with his getaway. Police soon released an image of a man in a
wheelchair leaving the bank taken from a nearby store's surveillance camera and
although it took two days to find him, Dennison was recognized when he went to
a Queens hospital. A tipster called police and when he was questioned by
investigators, Dennison told them he was in a wheelchair after being injured in
a shooting. He was charged with robbery
and is being held on $15,000 bail and while he doesn’t appear to be much of a
criminal mastermind, give him credit for being willing to try something with
such a low chance for success……..
- Quite
an environment on the Vans Warped Tour right now. Front Porch Step frontman Jake
McElfresh is the center of attention for all of the wrong reasons and it’s not because
he’s a pop-punker whose band is making a name for itself in front of the
tweens, teens and disenfranchised who show up each summer in parking lots and
at campgrounds nationwide to witness the festival. No, the reason people are
talking about McElfresh is that he was recently accused of allegations
of sexual misconduct and harassment by a number of underage girls. At
this point, the allegations are just that, allegations, but multiple such
allegations by multiple girls is reason enough to ask serious questions. In the
case of the 13,000 lazy asses who believe that a digital signature passes for
social activism, it is also reason enough to sign a Change.org petition calling for the singer and his band to be axed from the
festival’s lineup. In his defense, McElfresh denied the allegations in a lengthy
statement on Front Porch Step's Facebook page. "To be associated with words like child
molester, pedophile, and rapist - are disgusting and deplorable and I am
neither and NEVER will be,” McElfresh wrote. “To be lumped in to that category
is just gross. I have never had any romantic and/or sexual physical interaction
with an underage person nor do I have the desire." The statement proves
nothing - just as the accusations against him - and this will boil down to the
alleged victims deciding to press charges and police finding proof of what
happened or didn’t happen, but this is probably not the sort of publicity that
tour officials were looking for when they made the decision to add Front Porch
Step to their lineup…….
- Can't
stop, won’t stop….senselessly sending people shuffling off this mortal coil in
a hail of bullets, stab wounds and blunt objects to the head. The Central
American nation of El Salvador is rapidly
pushing to become the place where you go if you’d really like someone to blast
a hole in you with an unregistered firearm and June was the biggest month yet in
the quest to become the murder destination for the world. June alone saw a
whopping 677 murders in El Salvador, more than in
any other single month since the end of the country's civil war. Miguel Fortin
Magana, director of the country's Legal Medicine Institute, confirmed that one
month after setting a new standard for homicide with 641 murders in May, El
Salvador blew right past that mark and brought the tally for the first half of
2015 to a stunning 2,965 murders, compared with 1,840 murders during the same
period last year. The wave of violence is simply staggering as the country's
street gangs have renewed their clashes with government forces and among
themselves. The recent gang truce of a year or so could not be further in the bullet-strafed
rearview mirror and it seems like ages ago that the truce was able to drop tahe
average daily murders fall to about six. June produced nearly four times that
many killings per day and anyone who thought life might calm down and become
less deadly after El Salvador's civil war ended in 1992 clearly underestimates
man’s capacity for senseless violence. The estimated 76,000 people who died
during the war’s 12 years and the 12,000 more who disappeared are going to seem
insignificant if this murderous streak continues to rise……
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