BSJ Daily Briefing 04.03.18: Brockton's Matt Parziale quite the story during Masters week

Good morning!

A few random thoughts while we wait for the Red Sox to step foot outside of Florida for the first time since February after tonight's game in Miami....

• So Masters' Week has kicked off with the practice rounds on Monday (Tiger, Phil and Freddie are playing together today FYI), and one of the big stories from a New England perspective is Rocky-esque tale of Brockton firefighter/golfer Matt Parziale.


• Quickie version of his story: made himself a good player at a small Florida college, turned pro and struggled on the mini-tours for a while (we can relate: Mrs. BSJ did similar out of college) and finally decided to give up the dream. Returned home to The City of Champions and joined the same fire department his dad, Vic, worked at for over 30 years (since retired) but never gave up his love of the game. While playing out of Thorny Lea, Parziale got his amateur status back and the 30-year-old won the U.S. Mid-Am last summer to qualify for The Masters and U.S Open.


• You just know he's going to be a sensation one of the first two rounds and make it to the weekend. It's that kind of story.


• The Golf Channel did a really nice job on this story:

• I still don't think the Patriots will ultimately trade Rob Gronkowski, and I'm leaning even harder that way now that there are reports teams will be calling with offers. Since when does Bill Belichick ever pull off trades that way?


• Who else is sick of watching the Red Sox play Florida teams? Bring on the Bombers already.


• A triple dose of action tonight with the Bruins, Celtics and Sox all playing at the same time. Who ya got? Going Sox (Chris Sale is on the hill) over a terrible Marlins team, I think the Lightning will show some spunk over a Bruins team that's earned them, and the Celtics will have an answer for the Greek Freak.

The moment you've all been waiting for... pic.twitter.com/rIJlnYrCQU

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