The Timberwolves say now that they expect to trade disgruntled all-star Kevin Love and that a deal is expected Aug. 23 or Aug. 24.

“I’m saying it’s most likely because Kevin has made it pretty clear that that’s what he wants to do,” Wolves owner Glen Taylor told the Pioneer Press.

Taylor’s preference, though, is that Love remain in Minnesota. The August dates for a trade are because that’s when the Cleveland Cavaliers officially can deal their first-round draft pick, Andrew Wiggins, to the Wolves.

Cleveland remains the strong bet for Love to join LeBron James. But the Wolves continue to listen to offers from Chicago and Golden State, with Philadelphia expected to be part of a three-team deal.

A Love trade could give the Wolves a brand new look, with multiple players coming and going.

“I think when you move somebody like Kevin, who’s been an all-star, that you’ve got to get a number of players on your team that have the potential of replacing him,” Taylor said. “Flip (Saunders, Wolves president) has looked at this team and offensively, he’s got a pretty good team. Defensively, it’s got to be better, so I think that’s where some of the areas will be replaced.”

U.S. Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson has three personal picks for the 12-player team that will compete against the Europeans on Sept. 26-28 at Gleneagles in Scotland. If Fuzzy Zoeller, a former Masters champion, were picking the team, Tiger Woods would not be on it.

“He’s not playing well enough,” Zoeller said last week while in town for the legends portion of the 3M Championship. “There are other kids who are deserving of it, and I think Tommy will tell you that, too. Unless (Woods) shows something within the next week or so.”

Woods’ absence could affect TV ratings and advertising revenue.

“(TV) doesn’t make a damn to me — that’s a marketing deal,” Zoeller said. “(The U.S.) is trying to win a Ryder Cup, and that’s a lot bigger than that marketing stuff. That’s the way I feel, and I think Tom feels the same way.”

Meanwhile, Zoeller has a premium vodka named after him.

“We’ve graduated this vodka stuff — we’re now ‘Swing Oil,’ ” he said. “For the amateur golfer, if you’re not playing real good, have a ‘Fuzzy.’ It’s like a lubricant.”

Former Gopher Tom Lehman, who’s playing in the 3M Championship, was exempt for the recent British Open and the Senior British Open but passed in order to watch two sons play in junior golf events near San Diego.

Bernhard Langer is playing in the 3M Championship, despite nursing tendinitis in his right elbow.

Edinburgh USA professional Don Berry, 52, who has won the TapeMark tournament at Southview Country Club seven times and has been Minnesota PGA player of the year 14 times, will consider qualifying school for the Champions Tour this fall. Berry is playing in the 3M Championship.

“We’ll see,” said Berry, who in May made the cut playing against established pros in the Senior PGA Championship in Benton Harbor, Mich.

Nick Price’s advice for amateur golfers: “Pay attention to the three fundamentals — ball position, alignment and posture.”

Dana Quigley‘s advice for amateurs: “Tempo’s the most important thing. When (amateurs) get a driver in their hands, they try to hit it too far, swing faster. A lot of things go bad when you swing fast.”

St. Paul brothers Billy and Tommy Given of Prom Management Group, which provides catering to 38 professional golf tour events, including the 3M Championship, have invested more than $100,000 to lease Como Park and Phalen city golf courses, and they would love to take over maintenance of St. Paul’s Highland National course.

Former Apple Valley point guard Tyus Jones, 18, is taking two summer classes at Duke while preparing for his freshman season with the Blue Devils. The 6-foot-1, 185 pounder will return home Friday for a short break. Duke is No. 2 nationally behind Kentucky in preseason rankings.

Ex-Gopher Dusty Rychart, who has been starring in Australian basketball for nearly a decade, was married to an Aussie the other day.

Former South St. Paul and Princeton hockey star Sarah Ahlquist and Billy Schneider, son of 1980 Olympian Buzz Schneider and who played his father, the “Babbit Rabbit,” in the movie “Miracle,” were married recently in front of 230 family members and friends in Two Harbors, Minn.

Eric Curry, the former Twins vice president who works for Sun Country, and former Gophers women’s basketball star Kelly Roysland are to get married in three weeks. Curry will officiate nearly 55 men’s basketball games among the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences next season.

The Twins’ Joe Mauer, who is still out because of an oblique strain, is the fourth-best No. 1 overall pick in draft history, according to Sports Illustrated, which lists only the selection of Chipper Jones, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez as better than the three-time batting champion from St. Paul.

Ex-Viking Ahmad Rashad will host a celebrity golf show on DirecTV’s Back9Network. The show launches in September.

Former Twin and Gopher Jerry Kindall, the hall of fame former University of Arizona baseball coach from St. Paul, is an analyst for ESPN3’s Little League World Series regional games.

Gophers men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino figures Wisconsin should be considered the Big Ten favorite for the coming season.

Ex-North Stars broadcaster Ralph Strangis has signed a multiyear contract extension with the Dallas Stars.

Former North Star Tommy Younghans headlines the “Coach Joes” amateur hockey coaches symposium Friday at Braemar Arena in Edina.

Vikings second-year wideout Cordarrelle Patterson gets nearly two pages devoted to him in this week’s “most intriguing rising stars” issue of Sports Illustrated.

Eagan High and South Dakota State biology grad Trent Peterson, who recently won the Minnesota State Open golf championship, works nights as a registered nurse at United Hospital.

Sgt. Thomas Block, a former Minnesota State Mankato wrestler and U.S. Army Ranger, has been named soldier of the year by “Army Times.”

Northfield High grad Jodi (Johnson) Greene is the new Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy.

Bud Grant and Joel Maturi were among eulogizers at the recent funeral for former Gophers All-American Bob McNamara, which attracted nearly 400 attendees, including University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler, Gophers football coach Jerry Kill and Gophers baseball coach John Anderson at the Church of St. Patrick in Edina.

With McNamara’s passing, it will be interesting to see whether Minneapolis’ historic St. Anthony Athletic Club — an early handball and racquetball mecca that Bob and pals frequented — continues to be popular.

Gophers athletics director Norwood Teague is to speak at a Minnesota Minutemen luncheon Tuesday at Mancini’s Char House.

Prayers are welcome for Laurel Nitti, wife of longtime Minnesota high school football coach Nick Nitti. A benefit for Laurel, who is seriously ill with cancer, and the family will be Aug. 10 at the Green Mill-Hampton Inn in Shoreview.

Gophers public address announcer Dick Jonckowski, 70, undergoes a second round of chemotherapy Monday for a form of lymphoma, but he is recovering well.

Methuselah: Former Twin LaTroy Hawkins of the Colorado Rockies, at 41, recently hit 98 mph with his fastball.

A Harley-Davidson motorcycle with Hall of Fame former Twin Bert Blyleven riding it at Target Field will be raffled Aug. 16, with proceeds to support late fellow hall of famer Harmon Killebrew‘s hospice charity.

DON’T PRINT THAT

If a PGA Tour tournament were to become available in late July or August, Hollis Cavner would take it for Minneapolis, and he has notified the tour that he would operate it.

Cavner, who oversees the 3M Championship senior tournament at the TPC, also would keep the Champions Tour event in Blaine. Title sponsor 3M would switch to the PGA Tour event, and new sponsors would be sought for the senior tour tournament.

Because of a brutal schedule the first part of the season, it looks like a 7-9 season for the Vikings under first-year coach Mike Zimmer, whose team should improve during the second half.

The Gophers men’s basketball team is doing a nice job of recruiting DeLaSalle point guard Jarvis Johnson, who looks like the front-runner for next season’s Mr. Basketball Minnesota.

Top NBA draft pick Andrew Wiggins, who could be coming to the Timberwolves from Cleveland in a trade for Kevin Love, played at Augsburg College in a holiday tournament as an eighth-grader out of North Carolina.

Although the Wild were able to sign Thomas Vanek, 30, to a $19.5 million, three-year contract this summer, the team could afford only a three-year deal for free-agent defenseman Matt Niskanen, 30, the former Mountain Iron resident who subsequently accepted a $40.25 million, seven-year offer from the Washington Capitals.

The Gophers’ 2014 football schedule includes road games at Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin and a home game against Ohio State. Wisconsin doesn’t play Michigan or Ohio State.

If the Badgers can get past LSU in their opener in Houston, considering their schedule, they could go 12-0. That schedule includes Western Illinois, Bowling Green, South Florida, Northwestern, Illinois, Maryland, Rutgers, Purdue, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. Wisconsin’s preseason ranking is No. 14; LSU is No. 13.

Don’t be surprised if Cretin-Derham Hall grad Ryan McDonagh, 25, before long is named captain of the New York Rangers.

Look for several Minnesota connections when 2014 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame electees are announced Wednesday. It also will be announced that the induction ceremony, which hasn’t taken place in Minnesota for eight years and last year was in Detroit, will be Dec. 4 at a site to be determined in Minneapolis.

The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Museum will continue to be housed in Eveleth, Minn.

The state of Minnesota design that was configured into the center-field grass for the All-Star Game at Target Field will be gone by Tuesday’s game against San Diego.

The Twins have gone from 300-to-1 odds to win this season’s World Series to 1,000-to-1, according to Bovada-Las Vegas. The San Diego Padres, who play the Twins on Tuesday and Wednesday at Target Field, also are 1,000-to-1.

The Vikings are 100-to-1 to win this season’s Super Bowl. The Green Bay Packers are 10-to-1.

And, the Gophers are 12-to-1 to win the Big Ten’s West Division in football, behind favored Wisconsin (6/5), Nebraska (3/2) and Iowa (5/1).

It wouldn’t be surprising if former Viking Matt Birk, who is the NFL’s new director of football development, someday ends up running the Vikings.

OVERHEARD

Hollis Cavner, who oversees the 3M Championship, on the splendid overall weather the tournament has received this year compared to past years’: “Had enough of bad weather. We’ve had everything except hurricanes to locusts.”

Charley Walters can be reached at cwalters@pioneerpress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Charley_Walters.