Latest news with #Cobra
New York Times
8 hours ago
- General
- New York Times
Carrying his own bag, Max Homa fails in bid to qualify for U.S. Open
The thing about 'Golf's Longest Day' is that it can get even longer. Not only did Max Homa experience the annual agony of U.S. Open final qualifying Monday, but he added an extra hurdle to his day by carrying his clubs for 36 holes in regulation play and then for two more thanks to what would be an unsuccessful playoff. Advertisement More than eight hours of walking did not earn Homa a spot in next week's U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club. The seven-time PGA Tour winner found himself loading up a Cobra carry bag and hoofing it in a tournament for the first time in years. He has recently dropped out of the top 60 in the Official World Golf Ranking, and without an automatic berth into the major championship, Homa needed to earn one of the six spots up for grabs in the Columbus, Ohio, qualifier to play his way into the field. Ten separate 36-hole qualifiers were held around the country Monday, with hundreds of players vying for those coveted U.S. Open invitations. Forty-seven made it through, including amateurs, past PGA Tour winners, and a dentist and former Oakmont caddie, Matt Vogt. It looked like Homa might have a chance to get through at the Columbus qualifier, held at Kinsale Golf and Fitness Club, after he posted an opening-round 3-under 69. He floated around the qualifying bubble for the rest of the day until his 36th hole, a reachable par-5, where he three-putted for par. A birdie would have been an automatic in. Instead, Homa entered a sudden-death playoff with those at 5-under: Cameron Young, Rickie Fowler, Eric Cole and Chase Johnson. Young birdied the first playoff hole to snag the spot. Erik Van Rooyen, Bud Cauley, Lanton Griffin, Justin Lower and Harrison Ott also made it to Oakmont from the Columbus qualifying site. But Homa was the only golfer on the course sans caddie. He carried his bag after recently splitting with his caddie, Bill Harke, per the Associated Press. Before working with Harke, Homa had his childhood best friend, Joe Greiner, caddie for him. Greiner recently walked away from the job after teaming up with Homa for nearly a decade. 'I might need to walk by myself more. Maybe I just looked at it as a nice, peaceful walk. Probably got to battle some demons and have no one to lean on. Maybe that helps a little bit. There's no one … everything is me. The battle helped that a little bit.' Homa told the AP on Monday. Homa's game has been a matter of peaks and valleys since tying for third at the 2024 Masters. A gnarly concoction of equipment changes, swing remodeling and mental demons has contributed to the struggles. He performed well at the Masters again this season — a T12 finish — but has since failed to crack the top 30 in a PGA Tour event. 'To be completely honest — I don't know what I'm getting out of this,' Homa told The Athletic on the Sunday of the PGA Championship. 'But it's my job. So I'll keep trying and hopefully something great happens.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Suze Orman and 2 Other Money Experts Think You Need a 12-Month Emergency Fund
For years, the personal finance rule of thumb has been to have an emergency fund replete with three to six months' worth of living expenses. This isn't a bad rule considering that it's savvy to keep your cash holdings low so that you can maximize investments, but often an emergency fund this size just isn't big enough. Find Out: Read Next: Some financial experts, including Suze Orman, Ramit Sethi and Elaine King of Family and Money Matters Institute, think you need a 12-month emergency fund. This may sound excessive, but consider the following reasons why, in 2025, this is a good amount to keep at the ready in a high-yield savings account (HYSA). Some industries are more volatile than others. The technology sector, for example, is shaping up to be increasingly unstable, with mass layoffs frequently sweeping the field. The automotive sector is also rocky, as is the travel sector. Competition for these jobs is getting fiercer as corporations cut costs. So, you may need a lot longer than three months to replace your job if you work in these fields. Explore More: If your family relies on you in full to keep them sheltered, clothed, fed and so on, you're all going to be in for an incredibly tough time should you lose even some of your income. An ample cushion in the form of a 12-month emergency fund could literally prevent you from falling into credit card debt as you work to get back on your feet. Every seasoned freelancer is familiar with those one or two clients who provide them a ton of work. Perhaps these clients have you on a monthly retainer, or maybe they pop up on a seasonal basis and flood you with the bulk of your annual income. And every seasoned freelancer also knows the impact of losing such a client. Nothing is forever, especially not in contract work. Freelancers don't get severances or access to Cobra health plans. They need a plush emergency fund in the likely event that their major payday falls through. When a recession strikes, all bets are off. Though the economy inevitably rebounds, there's no crystal ball that tells us when it will. There is always massive job loss and consequently weakened consumer spending which only leads to more job loss as companies struggle to stay afloat. If you're one of the many employment casualties, you'll want a plentiful emergency fund to ride out the storm. On average, people find a new job after five months of searching — but keep in mind, that's the average. There are many horror stories featuring people with strong resumes who've spent a year-plus job hunting after a layoff. More From GOBankingRates The 5 Car Brands Named the Least Reliable of 2025 How Far $750K Plus Social Security Goes in Retirement in Every US Region This article originally appeared on Why Suze Orman and 2 Other Money Experts Think You Need a 12-Month Emergency Fund Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
USA Today
4 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Max Homa offered food, head covers to local high school golf team before Memorial
Max Homa offered food, head covers to local high school golf team before Memorial PGA Tour player Max Homa loves him some Chipotle, so much that he can't help but spread the queso wealth with younger golfers. Homa played Santa Cilantro on May 27 by treating Memorial Tournament volunteers to lunch, then gifted members of the Olentangy boys and girls golf teams with Chipotle food and limited edition foil-wrapped Chipotle-themed headcovers that he autographed. As part of the promotion between Chipotle and Cobra golf, Homa appeared at the Powell Chipotle to make teen golfers' gastrointestinal dreams come true. "Aw, man, he is such a genuine guy and the great personality he has online is truly the same way he is in person," Olentangy coach Kelly Holly said of Homa. "He's such a good dude. I'm pulling for him at the Memorial." Homa is a Chipotle fanatic, so he felt right at home slipping away from Muirfield Village Golf Club to snack with his younger self. "Any time you get to meet up-and-coming golfers, it's awesome," Homa said. "One, it puts you back in their shoes and you realize now how much there is to learn and enjoy with golf, whether you play professionally or not. Then, also just to feel like, it still makes me laugh that a kid will be excited. I mean, you know how it is. It's like 16-year-olds are too cool for school, so when they get excited to get Chipotle and take a picture with me, I have to pinch myself a little bit." Homa pinched himself black and blue for another reason, too. "It's a dream to play on tour. It's probably a bigger dream for me to be friends with the CEO of Chipotle, to be quite honest," Homa said, referencing company CEO Scott Boatright. "Since college (at California), I have been going to that place just religiously. So it's crazy to think we're doing things together." Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at roller@ and on at@rollerCD. Read his columns from theBuckeyes' national championship season in "Scarlet Reign," a hardcover coffee-table collector's book from The Dispatch. Details at
Motor Trend
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Motor Trend
1966 Shelby 427 Cobra vs. 1972 Ferrari Daytona Spyder: Gumball Rally Revisited
[This article originally appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of MotorTrend Classic] Given the giddy brew that comprises 1976's 'The Gumball Rally'—dream cars in an illegal race from New York to California (all for glory and a gumball machine), authentic high-speed zooming and vrooming, plenty of anti-establishment gags, plus a steady stream of spectacular stunts and pulchritudinous ladies in shrink-wrapped attire—it's a wonder the movie didn't sweep the Academy Awards. But Gumball took home not a single golden statuette. (In an obvious anti-auto conspiracy, also winning nothing was that year's other big car picture, 'Taxi Driver.') The New York Times, probably put off by Gumball's lack of subtitles, called it 'nothing but one long exhaust pipe.' 0:00 / 0:00 Hel-loooo? We've carefully watched all the big Oscar honorees for 1976—films like 'Network' and 'All the President's Men'—and haven't found a single scene involving a Ferrari Daytona Spyder or a Shelby 427 Cobra. And therein lies the guilty pleasure of 'The Gumball Rally.' For auto aficionados in the Seventies, watching Gumball was like spending 107 minutes inside Willy Wonka's Cheater Slick Factory. After all, owning a car in late-1970s America was a lot like being locked in your room by your parents—without the dirty magazines hidden under your bed. There seemed no end to the things we couldn't do. We couldn't drive over 55 mph—not without Fuzzbusters, anyway. We couldn't buy gas without a reservation. We couldn't own high-horsepower cars without feeling the static cling of Jimmy Carter's cardigan sweater. We couldn't even turn on the car radio, because the Bay City Rollers or Barry Manilow might be on it. Then the first reel rolled on 'The Gumball Rally,' and within 15 minutes the cast had raised a prerace toast that swept aside all societal fouled plugs: 'To internal combustion. And wind in the face.' Okay, 'Macbeth' it isn't. But Gumball fairly glistens with breath-snatching wheels: the sensuous Ferrari, the bulging Cobra, a black Porsche 911, a hopped-up Camaro, a vintage Mercedes 300SL roadster, a Rolls-Royce worth an astronomical '$40,000.' The dialog boasts a few 'Casablanca'-caliber gems, too, including perhaps the most immortal line in car-movie history—when Italian race champ Franco (the late Raul Julia) yanks the rearview mirror off the Ferrari as he declares to teammate Smitty (the late Tim McIntire): 'And now, my friend, the first rule of Italian driving: What's behind me is not important.' Above all, Gumball took our catalyst-choked, fuel-shortaged souls along on a vicarious thrill ride in which the only rule was 'there are no rules.' Who among us hasn't dreamt of doing naughty things with a Porsche right through midtown Manhattan? Who hasn't fantasized about outrunning a police helicopter in a Ferrari that 'must be doing 180 mph'? And who didn't go envy green over the classic, climactic duel between Franco's Daytona and the Cobra of Michael Bannon (Michael Sarrazin) down the semi-dry L.A. River to the finish line at the Queen Mary in Long Beach? Do the pictures on these pages look familiar? They should. That's the same L.A. River you see in Gumball, and those are the actual two cars that appeared in the movie (we look exactly like Sarrazin and Julia, too—at least if you're reading this while seated on a paint shaker). Drive the actual Gumball Rally cars? Who said youthful fantasies never come true? Enthusiasts will recall, of course, that the idea for an illegal cross-country race was hardly original. 'My agent sent me a clipping from the Los Angeles Times about this race from New York to L.A.,' says Chuck Bail, 70, Gumball's producer and director. 'And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, 'What a great idea for a comedy.'' Not finding the idea quite so amusing, though, was then-Car and Driver writer Brock Yates, whose notorious Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash was the illegal race in question and who had plans for his own movie version. 'I was furious about it. Really pissed off,' Yates said. Yet Gumball rolled on. 'I picked every car in the movie,' Bail says. 'The studio tried to force me to use star actors, but my feeling was, the cars are the stars.' Then Bail laughs. 'Also, I wanted to keep the budget down!' Bail remembers the first time he met his 'Franco Bertollini.' 'My agent said, 'You've got to meet this guy, Raul Julia.' And I said, 'I need an Italian!' But unbeknownst to me, Raul had already been prepped on the part. So he auditioned and he was just so Italian, so wonderful. But of course he was a New Yorker. He couldn't drive!' Bail had more difficulty finding his 'Michael Bannon.' 'Finally the studio president said, 'How about Michael Sarrazin?' And I said 'fine,' 'cause we started shooting in three days! But I gotta tell you, Michael was a wonderful choice. While we were filming, though, so many people thought he was Peter Fonda. Used to drive him nuts!' 'Michael was an even worse driver than Raul Julia!' laughs Linda Vaughn, the omnipresent motorsport beauty queen who appears in Gumball as the dishy 'Emergency Plan Alpha' to distract the amorous Franco from the finish line. 'Raul was such fun. I brought my Ferrari 246 to the set to show him how to shift gears, and I think it made Michael jealous—he wanted to go out with me. But the man could not even drive the Cobra! Raul got the hang of it. I was so impressed with how he handled himself. I still have the silk scarf he wears in the movie.' For his four-wheeled stars, Bail had backups. 'We had two of everything,' he says. 'You don't dare do a movie with just one of each car.' Bail's vehicular Noah's Ark included two authentic Cobras (plus one replica that appeared on screen briefly) and two authentic Daytona Spyders. The Cobra you see here, serial number CSX3255, is one of the two genuine cars; both were painted Guardsman Blue during the filming (CSX3255 has since been restored, repainted in red, and fitted with a new hood that lacks a scoop). While shooting, one of the two Cobras (it's unclear which) suffered nose damage during a crash into the L.A. River's concrete wall, forcing Bail to finish filming with the second car (look closely near the movie's end, and you can see the Cobra switch from damaged to undamaged and back again). Like the other film Cobra—CSX3243—the red car is now in private hands in California (see 'Ask the Man Who Owns One'). Gumball also used two genuine Ferrari Daytona Spyders. 'My stuntmen got to dicing with each other while we were filming the night race in Arizona between the Ferrari and the Cobra,' Bail says, 'and the Ferrari driver went off. Totaled the Daytona—and a Panavision camera. Somehow they found me another car in Scottsdale, and I wrote a check for $35,000 so I could finish shooting. At the end of the movie, the studio reimbursed my $35K. Can you believe it? I should've kept the damn car!' The Spyder you see here, serial number 14829, graciously loaned to us from its permanent home at L.A.'s Petersen Automotive Museum ( is likely the second car. According to the best available information, the wrecked Spyder, serial number 16467, was rebuilt, 'crashed' on screen by Kris Kristofferson in 1976's 'A Star Is Born,' and then converted into a 'NART Spyder' (however, one of 14829's earlier owners, former Ferrari racer and repair-shop owner Joseph Crevier, claims his was the Ferrari that appeared in both Gumball and 'A Star is Born'). Eventually, 14829 joined the collection of Noel and Mel (the voice of Bugs Bunny) Blanc before moving to the Petersen seven years ago. Since Gumball, 14829 has been restored and repainted, including new cockpit trim by famed interior specialist Tony Nancy. Both cars are gorgeous. Looking at the two of them side by side on the concrete of the L.A. River, just as they appeared in 'The Gumball Rally,' adolescent memories come flooding back. Why, we drooled over these very machines three decades ago. It's like climbing aboard a time machine and spending a day in 1976 with Farrah Fawcett and Lynda Carter—except the cars won't smack you if you put on a Barry White album. Unexpected for an exotic of its vintage, the Ferrari is a polished jewel (on reflection, perhaps that isn't surprising; this being the model that in the premiere issue of Motor Trend Classic our expert panelists ranked number two on the list of greatest-ever Ferraris). The engine starts easily, the five-speed slots gracefully through the pattern, and the steering quickly shrugs off an initial heaviness to become, as speed builds, quite light and fluid. The four-cam, 4.4-liter V-12 revs like a turbine, and the horses awaken smartly as the tach climbs. Beyond 5000 rpm or so, all 352 of them are racing hard for the 7500-rpm redline, emitting a howl that makes grown men weak in the knees and teenage boys stand in line to watch car movies. Franco and Smitty chose well—you can feel the Ferrari's long legs, its comfort with speed. For an illegal dash across the country, the Daytona would make a brilliant accomplice (and, in fact, in 1971 a Daytona coupe carried Brock Yates and racing legend Dan Gurney to a win in the Cannonball, averaging 80 mph over nearly 2900 miles and once reaching 176 mph). Gun this beauty through the gears, listen to it sing the high notes, and you can only smile and say, as Franco would, 'She is happy.' If the Ferrari is from Venus, the Shelby 427 Cobra is a beast from Mars. Climb aboard the Cobra, and you're tying yourself onto a rodeo bull—hell, this thing might even kick you if you try to climb back out. Twist the ignition, and the race-bred 7.0-liter big-block V-8 crackles and shudders, the flimsy aluminum body quivers like an overgrown Chihuahua, and soon your toes are slow-roasting against the firewall. You're still in neutral. The four-speed shifter juts out of the floor like a crooked cactus but finding the gear notches is effortless. Press in the clutch pedal (precursor to the Nautilus calf machine), tickle the throttle, and…sorry. We unintentionally clenched shut every bodily orifice just remembering how the Cobra charges off the line. All the acceleration clichés come to mind: aircraft-carrier catapults, NASA rockets, teenage girls catching sight of Leonardo DiCaprio. Driving this thing across the country would be pure masochism, but, man, even after four decades the Cobra has lost none of its famed bite. There's so much torque you can start off in fourth gear if you want. Put it in first, and it'd humiliate almost anything made today (it feels way quicker than the 5.3-second 0-to-60 time we recorded on skinnier tires—and with two aboard—in 1966). Legend has it that the Cobra could rocket from 0 to 100 and back to 0 in under 14 seconds—and from the way this one crushed our eyeballs, we believe it. Which car wins our Gumball Rally rematch? Without Emergency Plan Alpha on hand to bust loose a clear victor, we're happy to call it a draw, a question of taste—the Ferrari's Toscanini virtuosity versus the Cobra's shattering heavy metal. Besides, as Franco says in Gumball when yet another young lovely diverts his attention, 'Some things are more important than winning.' 1972 Ferrari 365GTS/4 Daytona Spyder Expect to Pay: Concours ready: $750,000 (perhaps $800,000 or more with Hollywood connection); solid driver: $600,000; tired runner: $500,000 Join The Club: Ferrari Club of America; Our Take Then: 'The Daytona Spyder will provide all the thrills a sane man could want and do it with full security at a level where lesser machinery might feel as though it were reaching escape velocity.'—Chuck Queener, Motor Trend, December 1971. Now: As scene-stealing as it ever was. And rare to boot: This car is one of only about 120 genuine Daytona Spyders built from 1969 through 1974 (thanks to abundant coupe-to-convertible conversions since then, of those original Spyders about 250 exist today). Still feels seriously fast, still feels robust. We'd gladly take one on a cross-country race tomorrow. Currently in the collection of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles ( 1966 Shelby 427 Cobra Ask The Man Who Owns One The Cobra's owner, a businessman and attorney in California's central valley who prefers not to be identified, says he didn't learn his car was used in 'The Gumball Rally' until after he bought it in 2002. 'It was a nice surprise,' he says, 'but really I'd always just wanted a Cobra. I used to own a replica, but when I had enough money I started looking for an original.' Why He Likes It: 'Running through the gears! I probably put 300 to 400 miles a year on the car driving it through the twisties. I've had it up to about 140 mph. But the handling is pure 1966. I can't imagine how anyone raced these cars on a road course.' Why It's Collectible: Shelby built only 348 427 Cobras (including 21 competition cars) from 1965 to 1967. Without question, the baddest automobile of the 1960s—it's a dream for many enthusiasts just to see one. Restoring/Maintaining: 'I have my Cobra maintained by a very talented guy named Brian Frick,' says the owner. 'When I bought the car it had already been restored, so I really haven't had to do anything major to it.' Expect To Pay: Concours ready: $700,000; solid driver: $550,000; tired runner: $400,000 Join The Club: Shelby American Automobile Club; Our Take Then: 'Although amazingly tractable and untemperamental for such a powerful machine, this is clearly not a car for everyone. If you want to pretend that every stop light is the grid at Nürburgring or every freeway the Mulsanne straight, forget it. You can't afford the tickets.'—Bob Schilling, MT, September 1966. Now: Still one of the most visceral and exciting rides ever put on four wheels. Fast, loud, unabashedly primal. Might want to go on a low-residue diet before you start it up.
IOL News
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Remembering Presley Chweneyagae: Tributes from Terry Pheto and Tshedza Pictures
South Africa Mourns 'Tsotsi' Star Presley Chweneyagae: Tributes Pour In for the Late Actor at 40 The talented actor became a household name for his work in the critically acclaimed film "Tsotsi," which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006, as well as in "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom". Heartfelt condolences have poured in following the death of South African actor Presley Chweneyagae . Chweneyagae's 'Tsotsi' co-star Terry Pheto who has not posted on her Instagram feed since 2022, paid tribute to the actor in a post. 'I'm shocked and saddened by the news of Presley's sudden passing. My heart goes out to his family and the rest of our friends and colleagues in the film industry. 'We shared an unforgettable moment when we won the Oscar. It's a moment I will forever cherish. May his soul rest in peace. 💔' His role as Cobra on 'The River' transformed him into a TV icon, a cultural phenomenon. 'Through characters like Cobra on The River, and most recently on Mzansi Magic's Cobrizi, he didn't just entertain, he made us laugh, made us care, and helped us understand the people behind the stories. 'His work brought heart and humanity to every role,' said Nomsa Philiso, CEO of General Entertainment at MultiChoice.
