Brooke Henderson celebrates with her trophy after winning the Evian Championship women’s golf tournament in Evian, France, on July 24.Laurent Cipriani/The Associated Press
After she’d won her second major on Sunday, Brooke Henderson turned to her sister, who is her caddy, and bugged out her eyes in a combo of amusement and bewilderment.
By that point, even Ms. Henderson must have been a little surprised by what she’d accomplished.
She went into the final round of the Amundi Evian Championship in France with a two-shot lead. She bogeyed the first hole. She four-putted the sixth. Midway through the round, she’d fallen back to the pack and lost the lead.
But having spotted everyone a few strokes, Ms. Henderson hit the afterburners in the final stretch. By the 18th, she needed an eight-foot putt to win outright. She gave it a little knee-bend English as it was headed to the hole, but it was never missing. She won by a single stroke, 17 under par.
“The saying is that majors are won on the back nine on Sunday,” Ms. Henderson said afterward.
People do say that, but most of the people saying it never win majors.
It was hard not to see in this weekend’s finish a sort of through-a-glass-brightly version of what happened in last week’s major final, the British Open at St. Andrews, Scotland.
Like Rory McIlroy, Ms. Henderson has done everything right for years – except win the big one. It’s been six years since her major breakthrough at the Women’s PGA Championship.
Like Mr. McIlroy, she went into Sunday in the lead. Like Mr. McIlroy, she didn’t catch sight of her main competition (in this case, American long shot Sophia Schubert) until she was in danger of being lapped. Like Mr. McIlroy, she was at risk of an embarrassing fumble – losing a tournament you had in the bag to someone who’d never won anything like it.
Unlike Mr. McIlroy, Ms. Henderson didn’t fold up.
When an interviewer put it to her afterward that she hadn’t been that good on Sunday, Ms. Henderson happily agreed: “Yeah, definitely not the best today.”
And yet she’s the person holding the trophy. This is the line that separates people who are good at something from people who are great. They find a way to bend pressure to their own purposes.
Lately, pressure’s been getting some bad press. It’s no longer considered polite to ask people about it, because their being able to handle it might suggest that others can’t. A new focus on mental health in sports has got people worried about the effects of high-profile disappointment on bold-face names.
But at the professional level, this is the only substantive thing separating competitors. They’re all physically gifted. They’re all resilient (or they wouldn’t have made it this far). But only a few have the mental fortitude to get inside their opponents’ heads and start pulling wires.
You could see the results of Ms. Henderson’s late charge on Ms. Schubert’s face at the end. The American rookie was only one shot away from the win, but there was no part of her that expected things to turn out that way. She seemed happier for Ms. Henderson than Henderson seemed for herself. Maybe a part of her was relieved it was over. If so, who could blame her?
Other than the look she shared with her sister, Brittany, Ms. Henderson didn’t do much more than smile beneficently. Even the champagne shower (the real stuff, not that sparkling junk) didn’t get much of a rise out of her. She spent a lot of time trying to talk people out of hugging her because she was soaked.
“I’m just super-excited to have my second major championship win,” Ms. Henderson said. On the scale of super-excitement, the tone was somewhere between “half-day Friday” and “found a great parking spot at Costco”.
This tendency to play things cool may be a reason Ms. Henderson doesn’t get as much attention in Canada as she deserves. When Bianca Andreescu wins a major, it’s pandemonium. But Ms. Henderson? Yeah, of course she won. That’s what she does – win. It’s an instance in which an athlete might be too good at what she does.
It’s already a commonplace that Henderson is the most accomplished golfer in Canadian history, pipping Mike Weir.
Sunday’s win puts her in a class of one. Along with the two majors, she has 12 tour victories over all. Those are already Hall of Fame numbers.
Because she’s been so good, so consistently, it feels as though Ms. Henderson’s been around forever, though she’s only 24. While being widely admired, she has somehow managed the trick of being underappreciated.
But maybe Ms. Henderson is about to get the run of headlines she deserves.
In the spring, she missed a couple of cuts. Rather than continue scuffling, she went home and took several weeks off to get her head straight. Not quite two months into her mini-comeback, she’s on top of the game again.
It’s a good time of year to excel at sports. Not much is happening. People are generally idle. Many are looking for something to do. How about getting super-excited about golf?
The LPGA Tour now moves to Britain from France. Until Sunday, Ms. Henderson had never won a tournament in Europe. Maybe she’s beginning her own Grand Tour.
In a month, Ms. Henderson will be back in Canada.
It’s been three years since the CP Women’s Open was held. Henderson last made national front pages when she won this tournament in 2018. No Canadian has won it twice.
If Ms. Henderson plans to capitalize on some jingoistic momentum, this would be the time to do it. A few good days could turn her from Canada’s favourite golfer to Canada’s biggest athlete, full stop.
You shouldn’t say such things out loud. It creates too much expectation, too many unfair opportunities to fail an arbitrary test. But Sunday proved again that Ms. Henderson’s real forte isn’t golf. It’s doing things people have no right expecting her to do.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
