In Round 3 of the Farmers Insurance Open, Maverick McNealy holed his second career hole-in-one. But how hard is that feat?

Well, at the Dubai Desert Classic, the DP World Tour gave Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood 50 balls apiece on a 149-yard par-3 to see if either can accomplish one of the most coveted achievements in golf, even though each of them has already nailed a number of aces before. 

What starts out as a fun challenge turns into an agonizing endeavor that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Amid many outbursts and thrown clubs between the two, can a couple of top-50 golfers in the world notch an ace after many close — and not so close — calls? Watch for yourself. 

Barcelona have completed the signing of Wolverhampton Wanderers winger Adama Traore on loan until the end of the season, the club have announced.

Tottenham Hotspur had been in talks with Wolves for some time, sources previously told ESPN, with boss Antonio Conte eyeing Traore as a possible wing-back option in his preferred 3-4-3 formation.

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While it is understood the winger harboured some reservations about that role, sources have told ESPN the bigger issue was a failure of both clubs to agree a fee with Spurs reluctant to pay much beyond £20 million.

Traore, 26, returns to Camp Nou after nearly seven years away, having come through the club's youth academy. He becomes Barca's third signing in the January transfer window following the arrivals of Dani Alves and Ferran Torres.

If Barca decide to sign Traore in the summer, the fee could be negotiated if Wolves also exercise a clause to make Francisco Trincao's move permanent.

Adama 2.0 #MadeInLaMasia pic.twitter.com/zXi1mpeTZR

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) January 29, 2022

The Premier League side have an option to sign the Portuguese attacker, who is on a season-long loan from Barca, for €30m at the end of the season.

Both players are represented by Jorge Mendes, who also oversaw Nelson Semedo's €30m move from Barcelona to Wolves in 2020.

Barca coach Xavi Hernandez has been keen for the club to strengthen in attack since taking over in November. Ferran Torres arrived from Manchester City for €55m earlier this month but a hamstring injury to Ansu Fati accelerated the need for further reinforcements.

Juventus' on-loan striker Alvaro Morata is also a target, but sources have told ESPN that doing a deal with his parent club Atletico Madrid, who are competing with Barca for a top four spot in LaLiga, is proving difficult.

Traore was born in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat in Catalonia and joined Barca's academy in 2004, progressing through the age groups before making four appearances for the first team.

Aston Villa paid €10m to take him to England in 2015. He joined Middlesbrough a year later, before Wolves paid around €20m to take him to Molyneaux in 2018.

During three-and-a-half seasons with the Premier League side, he has made 154 appearances, scoring 11 goals.

Traore has won eight international caps for Spain since making his debut in 2020. He was part of Luis Enrique's squad for Euro 2020 last summer as La Roja reached the semifinal, where they were eliminated by eventual winners Italy on penalties.

Information from ESPN FC correspondent James Olley was used in this report

The Kansas City Chiefs released cornerback Damon Arnette from his futures contract, a source confirmed to ESPN, after he was arrested on gun and drug charges in Las Vegas early Saturday morning.

Arnette's contract with the Chiefs wasn't to start until the 2022 league year begins in March, and the 2020 first-round draft pick was not with the team as it prepared for Sunday's AFC Championship Game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Arrowhead Stadium.

Arnette, 25, was jailed in Las Vegas early Saturday morning on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, carrying or concealing a gun without a permit, possession of marijuana or cannabis, and possession of a controlled substance, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Arnette was released by the Las Vegas Raiders in November after video surfaced of him making death threats while brandishing firearms. He also is facing lawsuits stemming from a Las Vegas car crash in October 2020.

Arnette was selected by the Raiders out of Ohio State in the first round of the 2020 draft. He played for them in 13 games with seven starts and three passes defended.

Tom Brady is retiring from football after 22 seasons in which he won a historic seven Super Bowl titles, sources told ESPN.

When Brady, widely considered the greatest quarterback in NFL history, left the field following the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' loss to the Los Angeles Rams last week, he knew it was likely his final act as a football player, sources said. In the days since, he has spent time digesting that mindset and is preparing his retirement announcement along with the next chapter of his life and career, sources said.

Sources said that Brady's decision to retire is based on several factors, including family and health. While less significant, Brady also recognizes that the Buccaneers are likely to undergo significant roster turnover, sources said.

Brady, 44, has been adamant for weeks that he never wanted a "farewell season," and many who know him believed he desired a decision made without much drama leading up to it. He will shift his focus to new endeavors and believes this is the right moment to end his playing career, sources said.

It is unknown when Brady will formalize his plans to retire, but it will be made with consideration to not upstage the NFL's postseason games or Super Bowl.

Buccaneers executives and coaches have been bracing for Brady's retirement in recent weeks, recognizing it was more likely than not that he would hang it up after the season, team sources told ESPN. One source said as recently as this week that "all signs point" to Brady's retiring.

The Buccaneers hoped to make an emphatic pitch to persuade Brady to play one more year, but Tampa Bay recognizes that effort is not expected to have an impact and is resigned to the challenges that now lie ahead.

Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians told the Tampa Bay Times on Saturday that he was not aware of a retirement decision by Brady.

"He hasn't that we know of," Arians said. "Agent [Donald Yee] just told us he hasn't made up his mind."

When Brady makes his decision to retire official, the former New England Patriots quarterback will end a storied career that spanned three different decades on the path from Foxboro to Tampa to Canton.

He won seven Lombardi trophies, the most championships won by a single player in NFL history, along with five Super Bowl MVPs. He piled up all-time records such as most touchdown passes (624) and most passing yards (84,250) in his 22 seasons.

His performance during the final year of his career -- finishing the regular season as the NFL leader in touchdowns and passing yards -- suggested Brady could have continued playing at an elite championship level. But he recognized the sacrifice it would take on him and his family and felt it was time to tackle other challenges, sources said.

Earlier in the week, appearing on his "Let's Go" podcast with host Jim Gray, Brady used the word "satisfied" to describe his NFL career, which caught the attention of many who know a man who rarely was satisfied with his achievements. Brady cited his family's desires as a heavy factor in his upcoming decision.

"I said this a few years ago, it's what relationships are all about," Brady said on the podcast. "It's not always what I want. It's what we want as a family. And I'm going to spend a lot of time with them and figure out in the future what's next."

Brady and his family have been building a South Florida home just north of Miami.

"I'll know when I know," Brady said during the podcast. "I think for all of us, you know, we can all decompress a bit. It's been six straight months of football. Every day consumed by day in and day out football. And I think now it's just some time to spend some time with my family and spend some time with my kids."

Brady will become the second future Hall of Fame quarterback to call it a career this postseason. On Thursday, former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger announced his retirement.

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has a right ankle sprain and will be sidelined at least through the All-Star Break, the team said on Saturday.

The Thunder said he will be reevaluated after the break in mid-February.

Gilgeous-Alexander was injured early in the third quarter of the Thunder's 113-110 overtime loss to Indiana on Friday night and did not return. He was seen after the game on crutches and in a boot.

Gilgeous-Alexander is the Thunder's leading scorer, averaging 22.7 points.

As Aaron Rai contends for his first PGA Tour victory on Saturday at the Farmers Insurance Open, it’s likely that television cameras will pick up Rai’s distinctive choice in golf accessories.

No, we’re not talking about his double rain gloves or his Frankenstein driver head cover, but rather his decision to use iron covers.

Yes, the 26-year-old Englishman from Wolverhampton is just like your average 18-handicap who spent his entire paycheck on a new set of irons and doesn’t want them to get dinged up. But why would a PGA Tour player, one who gets all the free equipment he could want, use iron covers?

There’s a good – and arguably great – reason. Let Rai explain:

“I grew up in very much a working-class family, and golf has always been a very expensive game,” Rai shared with SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio last fall. “My dad, he used to pay for my equipment, pay for my membership, pay for my entry fees, and it wasn’t money that we really had, to be honest, but he’d always buy me the best clubs.”

Rai estimates he was about 8 years old when his dad purchased him a set of brand-new Titleist 690 MBs, clubs that cost upwards of 1,000 pounds back then.

“I cherished them,” Rai added. “When we used to go out and practice, he used to clean every single groove afterward with a pin and baby oil, and then to protect the golf clubs, he thought it’d be good to put iron covers on them, and I’ve pretty much had iron covers on all of my sets ever since just to kind of appreciate the value of what I have. … Although I’m on the PGA Tour and we get given equipment, we get given anything we need, it’s more out of principle and it’s more out of just the value of not losing perspective of what I have and where I am.

“So, the covers are going to stay, I’m sorry.”

There you go, Rai doesn’t care what you think about his iron covers.

The Saturday finish at the Farmers Insurance Open could become an annual tradition.

The only question is whether a few other tournaments follow suit.

Farmers Insurance CEO Jeff Dailey told the San Diego Union-Tribune this week that the tournament will likely stick with its Wednesday-Saturday schedule for the foreseeable future. That shift allows the Farmers not to conflict with the NFL’s conference championship games on Sunday, and Golf Channel is using the open day on Torrey Pines’ South Course to broadcast, for the first time, the final round of an event on the Advocates Pro Golf Association, a circuit designed to promote diversity in the sport.

When asked whether the Farmers could conceivably switch back to its traditional Sunday finish, Dailey told the newspaper: “I don’t think so. It’s important to us that the ratings are strong, but we still get a tremendous amount of business benefit because we use this as motivation for our top agents around the country. That business benefit for us is probably stronger than a few incremental ratings points. If you take the ratings out of it, I like the Saturday finish better.”

Both the third and final rounds of the Farmers were broadcast on CBS, in primetime.

The altered schedule meant no early-week pro-am – which is a “net $1 million hit” for the event, according to tournament director Marty Gorsich – but he said the losses could be made up other ways, such as a tee-off gala.

“All the other elements are fine,” Gorsich told the newspaper. “I don’t see anything in our old format that says, ‘We’ve got to get back to that.’ People watching our event on national TV Friday, it might take a year for people to realize that. That’s how tradition gets built. It doesn’t start in the first year. It’s consistency over time for people to learn it and embrace it.”

Might other tournaments embrace the same schedule?

The first three Tour events of the new year – the Sentry Tournament of Champions (final week of regular season), Sony Open (wild-card playoff round) and American Express (division playoff round) – all have late Sunday finishes, when the highly popular NFL’s season is nearing its conclusion. NFL games accounted for 48 of the top 50 most-watched TV shows during the regular season, when the Tour's fall schedule gets underway.

Dailey told the newspaper that the date change has been popular with players.

“I won’t say who,” he said, “but someone’s prediction was that three or four more tournaments might shift their dates as well.”

USMNT midfielder Tim Weah didn't accompany the team to Hamilton, Ontario, and will miss Sunday's World Cup qualifier against Canada due to his vaccination status not meeting the country's entry requirements, manager Gregg Berhalter said on Saturday.

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Berhalter said that Weah had received one dose of a vaccine, and then caught COVID-19, preventing him from getting the second shot with enough time to satisfy Canada's requirements. Weah is considered vaccinated in France, where he plays for Lille, and was able to enter the U.S. for last Thursday's game against El Salvador. He is expected to be available for Wednesday's qualifier against Honduras at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"[Weah] had one shot, one vaccination. He got COVID, he was awaiting the second shot," said Berhalter. "Due to the time of when he got COVID he wasn't able to get that second shot yet. However, in France, he is listed as fully vaccinated because in France, the one shot plus COVID means you're vaccinated and you're OK. As a technicality, it wasn't acceptable in Canada. This is something we can't control, the nuances of COVID protocol, and we just have to deal with it.

"This was a nuanced technicality that we were hoping was going to get pushed through and unfortunately it didn't."

According to the Canadian government, to qualify as a fully vaccinated traveler, an individual must have received at least two doses of a vaccine accepted for travel, a mix of two accepted vaccines or at least one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The second dose must have been received at least 15 days before an individual enters Canada. Travelers must also have no signs or symptoms of COVID-19.

Berhalter said that it was only in the past couple of days that the USSF was made aware that Weah's vaccination status would be an issue. The Canadian government doesn't allow exceptions to the entry requirements for travelers.

The loss of Weah is a blow for the U.S. given his excellent form of late. Weah created the game-winner in the 2-1 win over Costa Rica in October, scored the lone goal in the 1-1 draw at Jamaica and had the game-winning assist against Mexico during the November window. But the U.S. has cover at the wide forward position, with Brenden Aaronson also showing well during qualifying, scoring against Honduras and Canada.