The Wednesday edition of NYT Connections Sports Edition arrives with puzzle #667, serving up a grid that spans golf trouble, sports cinema, college football lore, and compact phrase-building wordplay.
What Makes Connections Sports Edition Tick
For newcomers, NYT Connections Sports Edition presents 16 sports-themed words that must be sorted into four thematic groups of four. The twist? You're limited to four mistakes, and the color-coded difficulty system (yellow being easiest, purple being trickiest) means surface-level connections often mislead.
Connections Sports Edition brings the same addictive puzzle format to the world of athletics, featuring athletes, teams, sports terminology, and legendary moments. The game's genius lies in its red herrings, words that could fit multiple sports categories but belong in only one.
Today's Grid at a Glance
Here are the 16 words staring back at you in puzzle #667:
SWAMP | WATERBOY | HYDRATION | SERVICE
NATURAL | TIE | BIG HOUSE | FLATS
FAST | FIGHTER | OUT OF BOUNDS | HORSESHOE
BUNKER | POND | KARATE KID | ROUGH
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: Picture a golfer watching a wayward ball finish somewhere that was never part of the plan.
Green Category Clue: Think beyond the field and toward stories about sports told on the big screen. A small shared addition completes each name.
Blue Category Hint: College football fans often give famous venues identities that sound nothing like formal stadium names. The same short addition belongs before each one.
Purple Category Teaser: Treat each remaining entry as the opening half of a familiar two-word expression.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
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Yellow (Places Where An Errant Golf Shot Lands): BUNKER, OUT OF BOUNDS, POND, ROUGH
POND, BUNKER, ROUGH, and OUT OF BOUNDS are all places an errant golf shot can land. They trace a convincing tour of trouble from a water hazard to sand, difficult grass, and territory outside the course limits.
POND has a watery kinship with SWAMP, while ROUGH can read as a general description rather than a specific part of a golf course. Those overlaps make the clean golf set less immediate than its yellow label suggests.
Green (Sports Films, With "the"): FIGHTER, KARATE KID, NATURAL, WATERBOY
WATERBOY, FIGHTER, KARATE KID, and NATURAL become sports film titles when preceded by “The”: The Waterboy, The Fighter, The Karate Kid, and The Natural.
WATERBOY pulls toward HYDRATION through their shared water theme, and FIGHTER can suggest a competitor rather than a movie title. Recognizing the missing article locks the four films together.
Blue (College Football Stadium Nicknames, With "the"): BIG HOUSE, FLATS, HORSESHOE, SWAMP
SWAMP, BIG HOUSE, HORSESHOE, and FLATS are college football stadium nicknames used with “The”: The Swamp, The Big House, The Horseshoe, and The Flats.
The repeated article creates a structural echo with the film group, which is the grid’s strongest category-level trap. SWAMP also sits temptingly close to POND as a waterlogged place.
Purple (_____ Break): FAST, HYDRATION, SERVICE, TIE
HYDRATION, TIE, FAST, and SERVICE each open a phrase ending in BREAK: hydration break, tie break, fast break, and service break.
The trick is unusually broad because the completed phrases come from different sporting and everyday contexts. FAST and SERVICE feel especially sport-specific, while HYDRATION supplies the bridge back to WATERBOY.
The Verdict
The golf group is the most accessible starting point once BUNKER, ROUGH, and OUT OF BOUNDS line up, though POND can drift toward SWAMP.
The real trap is the parallel use of “The” in both the film titles and stadium nicknames. Solvers who identify one pattern without checking its subject can easily mix the two sets conceptually.
The streak-deciding group is the BREAK set, where WATERBOY and HYDRATION create a persuasive distraction before HYDRATION joins TIE, FAST, and SERVICE.
Reset and Repeat
Today’s best move was spotting that the missing article powered two separate categories, then letting BREAK resolve the leftovers. Reset the board tomorrow and come back ready for another round of sports knowledge and wordplay.
For now, puzzle #667 is solved. See you at midnight for the next round.
