The crowd loved it as Bryson DeChambeau ascended to pole position in the FedExCup with his eighth PGA TOUR victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard.
DeChambeau’s soaring drives at the sixth hole maxed out at 377 yards Sunday and brought howls of delight as he turned the par 5 into a par 4 at most. And after he’d made a testy five-footer to secure a final-round 71, edging Lee Westwood (73) by one, he flexed and screamed.
Not lost amid all the fireworks, though, was that DeChambeau also won in large part due to his work on the greens, namely by making his two longest putts of the week. First came his birdie from just over 37 feet at the fourth hole, which seemed tame by comparison to the nearly 50-foot bomb he would make to save par at the 11th hole. He joins just four other players to make multiple putts from over 35 feet in the final round en route to victory in the ShotLink era:
• Vijay Singh (three such putts), 2008 Dell Technologies Championship • Ben Crane (two), 2010 Farmers Insurance Open • Tiger Woods (two), 2008 Farmers Insurance Open • Craig Stadler (two), 2003 B.C. Open
After his U.S. Open victory last fall, DeChambeau – the first American winner at Bay Hill since Matt Every in 2015 – becomes the first multiple winner of the 2020-21 TOUR season.
Here are five other stories you may have missed:
1. DeChambeau remembers those who paved the way.
The champion had some legends in his corner on Sunday.
For one, he always has revered the tournament’s namesake, who was kind enough to extend an invitation to DeChambeau to compete at Bay Hill when DeChambeau was still an amateur. As the 2015 U.S. Amateur champion (Palmer was a U.S. Amateur champion 61 years earlier), DeChambeau played the Arnold Palmer Invitational and tied for 27th, his week highlighted by a closing 66. For a young kid dreaming of one day playing the TOUR, it was a significant week.
If the first player who comes to mind at Bay Hill is Palmer, then the second would be Tiger Woods, an eight-time winner there. Sunday before his round, DeChambeau received a text from Woods, who was injured in a single-car accident in Los Angeles on Feb. 23.
“Well, it was obviously personal, I would say, for the most part, but pretty much to sum it up … he texted me this morning out of the blue and I wasn’t expecting anything,” DeChambeau said. “When I got that text, I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty amazing that he is thinking of me when he’s in his tough times that he’s going through right now.’ So I just texted him. I said, ‘Keep moving forward, keep going forward. You’re going to get through it. You’re the hardest working person I’ve ever met and you’ll persevere through this pretty much.’
“One of the things that we talked about was, it’s not about how many times you get kicked to the curb or knocked down. It’s about how many times you can get back up and keep moving forward. And I think this (champion’s) red cardigan is not only for Mr. Palmer, but I would say it’s a little bit for Tiger as well, knowing what place he’s in right now.”
Although he didn’t win, ultimately collecting his seventh runner-up finish on TOUR, Lee Westwood made hard-working pars on 17 and 18 to at least make DeChambeau earn it. That included Westwood’s gritty 4 from a divot in the middle of the fairway at the last.
The only hiccup: His failure to birdie the short, par-5 16th hole after splitting the fairway.
“Yeah, I mean I’m not short myself,” Westwood said. “I think I hit it about 350 yards down 16. I only went in with wedge into that par-5.” Yet with DeChambeau up against the lip of a fairway bunker, Westwood missed the green and couldn’t get up and down, walking off with a par.
Still, the veteran from England wasn’t hanging his head at the end of a very, very hard day.
“You can’t want for more than that,” he said. “I thought we had a really good battle, we were never, it was never really more than one in it all day and there were tough conditions out there and it wasn’t going to be a day where – I don’t think anybody was going to shoot 68 or67.
“It was a day for playing sensible and hanging on and grinding out the pars.”
3. Spieth pleased with T4 finish.
Although he didn’t make anything on the greens Sunday, Jordan Spieth (75, T4, five back) had a great first start at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It started with a tour of Palmer’s office and ended with his third top-five finish in his last four starts. This one, Spieth said, was his best effort yet in his comeback (T3/AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am; T4/Waste Management Phoenix Open).
“I thought I played better today than I did any of those Sundays,” said Spieth, whose streak of 389 holes without a double bogey or worse marks his longest on TOUR. “At the beginning of the day if you told me I was going to be even through 10 and be in – hit driver in the middle of the fairway on 11 and on 12 – I would have thought I was going to win the golf tournament.”
Spieth has climbed from 92nd to 52nd in the world this year, and his finish at Bay Hill pushed him up to 43rd (from 59th) in the FedExCup standings. The 2015 FedExCup champion continues to inch ever closer to the form that saw him reach No. 1 in the world.
“Again, I put the ball exactly where I wanted to on just about every single shot and putt,” he said, “and it came out to 75 somehow. But that’s not going to happen every time; if I do, if I play the way I did today. It’s going to be really good going forward.”
Rory McIlroy, who will be defending his 2019 title at THE PLAYERS Championship this week, went into the final round just four back but struggled with a 4-over 76 (T10). Although he was one of many who struggled, he had trouble accepting the lackluster final result.
“I don’t know,” McIlroy said. “I need something, I need a spark, I need something, and I just don’t seem to have it. Some days it’s good, some days it’s not.”
One thing he did feel optimistic about: The return of on-site fans.
“I’ve missed this a lot,” he said. “Even though it’s only, whatever, 25 percent capacity this week, it feels so much more than that and it’s great to play in front of that. I’m looking forward to doing it again next week. I think that it is, I think we’re all sort of now seeing a light at the end of the tunnel where things can at least get back to some sort of normality pretty soon.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” he continued. “It’s going to be surreal looking back in 20 years’ time and sort of seeing what we lived through.”
5. Corey Conners’ wild finish.
The good news for Canada’s Corey Conners was that he eagled the par-5 16th hole to get within one of the lead. The bad news is he bogeyed 17 and 18 to shoot 74 and finish 8 under, three back.
Still, the solo third was his best result of the season.
“Yeah, it was a challenge,” Conners said of a day in which the field averaged 75.486. “Definitely a battle out there. I made some nice saves at the start of the round, just didn’t get the putts to fall today, the greens were rolling really fast, ball seemed to never stop.
“So it was very challenging,” Conners continued. “Gave myself a shot, made a really great eagle on 16 that felt pretty good, and bogeyed the last two holes, wasn’t great. But really challenging golf holes. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.” (There were no bogey-free rounds.)
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Lamar Jackson threw for 281 yards and five touchdowns, helping the Baltimore Ravens overcome an early double-digit deficit and extend their National Football League winning streak to five games with a 41-31 victory Monday night over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who lost their top two receivers to injuries.
The two-time NFL MVP improved to 23-1 against NFC teams, the best mark by a quarterback against an opposing conference in NFL history. He’s 3-0 against the Bucs (4-3), who faded after taking a 10-0 lead with help from the 100th TD reception of Mike Evans’ career.
Evans departed with a hamstring injury after Baker Mayfield tried to connect with him in the end zone again, and late in the fourth quarter with the game out of reach, leading Bucs receiver Chris Godwin was carted off the field with a left ankle injury. ESPN declined to show replays of Godwin’s injury, which appeared to be severe.
Jackson completed 17 of 22 passes without an interception, including TD throws of nine and four yards to Mark Andrews. He also tossed scoring passes of 49 yards to Rashod Bateman, 18 yards to Justice Hill and 11 yards to Derrick Henry, who rushed for 169 yards on 15 carries. Bateman had four catches for 121 yards.
The Ravens (5-2) rebounded from a slow start on defence, with cornerback Marlon Humphrey turning the game around with a pair of second-quarter interceptions — one of them in the Baltimore end zone. Jackson led a four-play, 80-yard TD drive after the first pick, and the second interception set up Justin Tucker’s 28-yard field goal for a 17-10 halftime lead.
Elsewhere in the NFL:
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CARDINALS 17 CHARGERS 15
GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Kyler Murray ran for a 44-yard touchdown and led the Cardinals on a drive that set up Chad Ryland’s 32-yard field goal as time expired, and Arizona rallied for a win over Los Angeles.
Cameron Dicker kicked his fifth field goal of the night — this one from 40 yards — to give the Chargers a 15-14 lead with 1:54 left. But the Cardinals (3-4) quickly moved into field goal range, aided by an unnecessary roughness call on Cam Hart that cost Los Angeles (3-3) 15 yards.
Arizona followed that with a bruising 33-yard run by James Conner, who finished with 101 yards on the ground. That eventually set up Ryland’s short field goal and a Cardinals celebration.
It was a frustrating night for the Chargers’ offence, which gained 395 yards but couldn’t find the end zone. Justin Herbert completed 27 of 39 passes for 349 yards.
Dicker booted field goals of 59, 50, 28, 47 and 40 yards, the first of which tied a franchise record for distance.
Murray ran for a spectacular touchdown early in the fourth quarter, rolling to his left before turning on the jets, beating safety Junior Colston to the sideline and then coasting into the end zone for a 14-9 lead.
It was Murray’s second long touchdown run in three weeks after he scored on a 50-yard sprint against San Francisco. It was also Murray’s 20th career game with a touchdown pass and run.
Murray completed 14 of 26 passes for 145 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps have been here before — literally and figuratively.
With the season hanging in the balance, the ‘Caps were dealt a blow last week when the club learned it wouldn’t be able to play a post-season wild-card game in its home stadium, B.C. Place, due to a scheduling conflict.
The Whitecaps ceded home field advantage to their regional rival, the Portland Timbers. The two clubs will battle for the final playoff spot in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference in Oregon on Wednesday.
The winner will face No. 1-seed Los Angeles FC in a best-of-three first-round series, starting Sunday.
An unforeseen hurdle like a change of venues is nothing new for the ‘Caps, said defender Ranko Veselinovic, who was part of the team that was forced to relocate first to Portland, then Utah during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It feels that always something happens for us, but it is what it is. So far, we’ve managed to always find solutions for those situations,” said the Serbian centre back. “But I hope this team can find it one more time, because we need it this time. And it will be a really nice feeling in those circumstances to go in, win and go face L.A. in the next round.”
Vancouver (13-13-8) heads into the post-season winless in its last seven MLS games and with losses in four straight after dropping a 2-1 road decision to Real Salt Lake on Saturday.
The skid followed a run that saw the club go 4-1-3 across all competitions between late August and late September.
There’s just one way to return to that level, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini.
“The work is the only way to do it. Try to put the work in and try to put the team in a way that they’re going to regain the form and the way that they were in the past,” he said.
Despite the final score, Sartini has seen positives in the way his team played in its two most recent losses.
“I think already we turned the corner,” he said. “And we start from there to build and build and build.”
Facing challenges together can help a team build, whether it’s a winless skid or an unexpected hurdle, said Vancouver’s captain Ryan Gauld.
“When you’re going through adversity, that’s when people start to raise their voice a little bit. You get good when the problems arise, you get a lot of people coming together to make sure we get out of it,” said the Scottish attacking midfielder.
“And we’ve had a tough time the last few games, but everyone’s aware of the fact that we’re a much better team than we’ve shown, and we need to find a way to get back to doing what we’re good at.”
The ‘Caps face a familiar foe in the Timbers (12-11-11).
The two sides have already met three times this season, with each coming out of the series with a win, a loss and a draw.
Portland has also struggled in recent weeks and are winless in their last five MLS outings (0-1-4).
The Timbers boast one of the league’s top offensive units, though, with threats such as Evander. The Brazilian midfielder notched 15 goals and 19 assists during the regular season.
To earn a win on Wednesday, the Whitecaps must be solid defensively, Gauld said.
“They must be one of the best attacks in the league. They have a lot of good players, and they can hurt you if you switch off,” he said. “So just being concentrated from the first whistle, and just being hard to beat, being stuffy. Just being on it for the full 90 minutes.”
A victory in the wild-card match would guarantee Vancouver at least one home playoff game, a factor that Sartini said would be a big reward for his group.
The entire team relished the experience of playing post-season soccer in front of more than 30,000 fans last year, the coach said, and the desire to repeat the feat is high as the club heads to Portland.
“Everyone is happy to be in the playoffs. So we don’t have to be moody to be in the playoff. And we go in there, we’re play one of our rivals. So it’s gonna be a nice game to show up and to play our best game possible.”
VANCOUVER WHITECAPS (13-13-8) AT PORTLAND TIMBERS (12-11-11)
Wednesday, Providence Park
HISTORY BOOKS: This will mark the seventh all-time post-season meeting between the Timbers and ‘Caps, dating back to 1975. The last time the two clubs squared off in a playoff game was during the Western Conference semifinal in 2015. Portland won the two-game aggregate series and went on to hoist the MLS Cup.
ROAD WARRIORS: The ‘Caps boasted a 7-6-4 record on the road during regular-season play — better than the 6-7-4 showing they posted at B.C. Place.
POST-SEASON PARTY: Wednesday will mark the first time the Timbers have hosted a post-season game since 2021.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2024.
GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Scotland conceived rugby sevens in the 1880s yet it will not feature in the scaled-back 2026 Commonwealth Games hosted by Glasgow.
Other sports that have also been dropped include field hockey, triathlon, badminton, Twenty20 cricket, squash, and diving.
The Games will have a 10-sport program in four venues. Athletics and swimming are compulsory while there will also be track cycling, gymnastics, netball, weightlifting, boxing, judo, bowls and 3×3 basketball.
There will also be integrated para events in six of those sports: Athletics, swimming, track cycling, weightlifting, bowls and basketball.
The Games will take place from July 23-Aug. 2 after Glasgow stepped in when the Australian state of Victoria withdrew last year because of rising costs.
It was not easy to decide which sports to include, Commonwealth Games Scotland chairman Ian Reid told the BBC on Tuesday.
“I think everybody recognises that these events need to be more affordable, lighter and we would have loved to have all of our sports and all of our athletes competing but unfortunately it’s just not deliverable or affordable for this time frame,” Reid said.
Athletes and support staff will be housed in hotels. Around 3,000 athletes are expected to compete from up to 74 Commonwealth nations and territories representing a combined total of 2.5 billion people, a third of the world’s entire population.
More than 500,000 tickets made available for spectators.
The Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Katie Sadleir said: “The 2026 Games will be a bridge to the Commonwealth Games of tomorrow, an exciting first step in our journey to reset and redefine the Games as a truly collaborative, flexible and sustainable model for the future that minimises costs, reduces the environmental footprint, and enhances social impact. In doing so, increasing the scope of countries capable of hosting.”
Glasgow hosted the event in 2014 at a cost of more than 540 million pounds.
