SI:AM | The USWNT Goes for the Three-Peat

Plus, Dan Synder’s reign of terror in Washington comes to an end.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’m pretty disappointed that British Open officials decided to make the bunkers easier after yesterday’s first round.

In today’s SI:AM:

⚽ The USWNT’s pursuit of history

⚾ The family that inspires the Rays

🏈 Another name change for Washington?

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Can the U.S. make it three in a row?

The U.S. women’s national team’s pursuit of an unprecedented third straight Women’s World Cup championship begins tonight at 9 p.m. ET against Vietnam.

This team features plenty of familiar faces. Of the 23 players on the roster, 14 are playing in their first World Cup, while the remaining nine have all won at least one championship. Alex Morgan is back for a fourth World Cup and playing better than ever at age 34. Megan Rapinoe also made her fourth World Cup roster but will be counted on more for veteran leadership than goalscoring. Julie Ertz is back from a 20-month absence to anchor the midfield. Goalie Alyssa Naeher, midfielder Rose Lavelle and fullback Crystal Dunn are among the other notable returnees from the 2019 squad.

But with other former stalwarts absent (including the injured Christen Press, Tobin Heath and Mallory Swanson), this tournament will be an opportunity for the next generation of USWNT players to prove themselves. Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith and Naomi Girma (21, 22 and 23 years old, respectively) will be the youngsters to play the most significant roles in their World Cup debuts.

Tonight’s game against Vietnam is a great opportunity for the newcomers to get their feet wet in the pressure-packed environment of a World Cup. While every player but Savannah DeMelo (who will be making her USWNT debut Down Under) has national team experience, it’s undeniable that playing in the world’s biggest tournament can lead to extra jitters. Opening against Vietnam (the No. 32 team in the world) allows players to shake out any nerves before they play a tougher opponent.

After tonight’s game, the U.S. will continue group play against the Netherlands on Wednesday (9 p.m. ET). The team’s final group stage match is Aug. 1 against Portugal at 3 a.m. ET. This year’s tournament is cohosted by Australia and New Zealand. All three of the U.S.’s group matches will be played in New Zealand. If the Americans win the group, they’d play in Sydney in the quarterfinals.

As the No. 1 team in the world rankings, the U.S. are the favorites to win the tournament, but it won’t be easy. The rest of the world is finally catching up to the U.S. and beginning to take women’s soccer more seriously, as Brian Straus writes. Countries that previously treated the women’s game as an afterthought—or, even worse, actively hindered women’s participation—are now serious about developing female talent. Pro leagues in England, Spain, France and Germany have elevated those countries’ women’s national teams. Those four and defending Olympic champion Canada are the biggest threats to the U.S.’s three-peat hopes.

The USWNT has lost only four World Cup games in its history, but as other countries catch up, the U.S. isn’t quite the juggernaut it once was. While the Americans have been ranked No. 1 in the world since 2017, their record against the rest of the top five (Germany, Sweden, England and France) since that year is 11-6-3.

So what team is going to win it all? All three of our experts picked the Americans. In fact, all three picked the U.S. to face Spain in one semifinal and France against England in the other semi. After the U.S., England has the second-best odds of lifting the trophy Aug. 20 in Sydney, according to SI Sportsbook. The Lionesses won last summer’s European Championship and beat the U.S. in a friendly at Wembley in October. A rematch in the World Cup final a month from now would be a barnburner.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Will Vragovic/Tampa Bay Rays

• Today’s Daily Cover, by Stephanie Apstein, is the story of Rays bullpen catcher Jean Ramírez, who took his own life last year, and how his family has dedicated themselves to looking after his teammates.
• Conor Orr has some tips for rookie NFL owner Josh Harris, whose purchase of the Commanders was officially approved yesterday.
• I think Albert Breer’s contribution to The MMQB’s Bad Takes Week is actually a good idea. He proposes that the NFL buy the USFL and XFL and make them official developmental leagues.
• Elly De La Cruz continues to find new ways to amaze us, Emma Baccellieri writes. This time it’s with his throwing arm.
• Magic Johnson, part of the Commanders’ new ownership group, confirmed that the franchise will consider changing its name.
• The NFL fined Dan Synder $60 million on his way out the door.
• Jaguars associate strength coach Kevin Maxen is the first American men’s sports coach to come out as gay.

The top five...

… most unfortunate moments at the British Open thus far:

5. Gary Woodland’s fairway wood into a fence.

4. Tony Finau forced to break out his putter in a bunker.

3. Wyndham Clark’s desperate hack through some thick fescue.

2. Viktor Hovland’s getting crapped on by a passing bird.

1. Justin Thomas’s chip into a bunker and shot from that bunker into another en route to a quadruple bogey and an opening-round 82, his worst single round in a major.

SIQ

On this day in 1975, Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons had a home run disallowed after being caught using a doctored bat. How was his bat altered?

• Corked
• Grooved
• Flattened
• Charred

Yesterday’s SIQ: Who won the 2003 Open Championship despite it being his first major tournament and having entered the week at No. 396 in the world rankings?

• Matt Kuchar
• Russ Cochran
• Tom Carter
• Ben Curtis

Answer: Ben Curtis. He entered the final round in a five-way tie for third place two strokes behind leader Thomas Bjørn. Curtis came out hot to start his round, making six birdies on his first 11 holes to take a two-shot lead over Bjørn. Even though he sputtered to the finish (making four bogies on his final seven holes), Curtis escaped with a one-stroke victory.

As Michael Bamberger wrote in SI at the time, Curtis was as unlikely a major champion as you could imagine:

Ben Curtis is a 26-year-old golfer who still lives part of the time with his parents in a brick farmhouse built in 1829 on Main Street in Ostrander, Ohio (pop. 405), and who learned to play on the rich soil of the course his maternal grandfather constructed 30 years ago, when he decided to convert his pig farm into a muni. Ben Curtis is a self-taught, self-coached, no-nonsense professional, narrower in the shoulders than in the waist, with a 1950s-style Buckeye buzz cut, golf shirts you could buy at Marshalls and rumpled cotton khakis. He is a slightly built man who a year ago was playing on the Hooters Tour and who qualified for the British Open only by way of his 13th-place finish at the Western Open in Chicago earlier this month, in the 15th PGA Tour event of his life. The winner of the British Open is a man who in May missed the cut at the Memorial tournament—played in Dublin, Ohio, 15 miles from Ostrander—his game all fouled up by the pressure of having scores of friends and family following him.

The win was life-changing for Curtis. He had been on the fringes of professional golf, fighting to keep his PGA Tour card. But his win at Royal St. George’s not only earned him $1,112,720 and propelled him to No. 35 in the world, but it also earned him a five-year PGA Tour exemption and a 10-year exemption on the European tour. He went on to earn $13,779,910 in tournament winnings in his career, which ended in 2017.