For the second consecutive day, Francisco Lindor helped sink the Angels with a tiebreaking home run, launching a three-run, go-ahead shot to complete the Indians’ three-game sweep with a 4-1 victory in Thursday afternoon’s series finale at Angel Stadium.
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A quick look at how the FedExCup top 5 fared during the opening round of the TOUR Championship. 1 Jordan Spieth, 67, T6 (projected 1st in FedExCup) – After battling a wayward driver on the front nine, Spieth settled down with three straight birdies on holes 6-8, then went bogey-free on the back. Three behind leader Kyle Stanley. 2 Justin Thomas, 67, T6 (projected third) – A hot-and-cold round for the six-time TOUR winner. Playing with Spieth in the final pairing, Thomas hit 11 of 14 fairways, but only 12 greens in regulation. Six birdies, three bogeys. 3 Dustin Johnson, 68, T11 (projected fourth) – Appearances suggest he had a steady round with 16 pars and two birdies, but Johnson hit just five of 14 fairways and 13 of 18 greens. Shot one of day’s three bogey-free rounds (Brooks Koepka, Gary Woodland). 4 Marc Leishman, 71, T21 (projected sixth) – The only member of the Top 5 to shoot over par, Leishman, perhaps battling a hangover from winning the BMW Championship last week, hurt his cause with a double-bogey at the 13th hole. 5 Jon Rahm, 67, T6 (projected fifth) – An eagle at the par-5 sixth hole and birdies at 17 and 18 left a good taste in first-ever round at the TOUR Championship. So did a stellar birdie at the 220-yard, par-3 ninth hole. Not so his 32 putts.
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ATLANTA – Notes and observations from Thursday’s first round of the TOUR Championship, where Kyle Stanley holds the lead after shooting 64. For more coverage from East Lake Golf Club, click here for the Daily Wrap-up. STANLEY COMES BACK STRONG Last year, Kyle Stanley had to worry about keeping his PGA TOUR card. Now he has a chance to claim the FedExCup. Stanley shot 64 on Thursday in his first competitive round at East Lake Golf Club, making seven birdies against a single bogey. Stanley, 29, is making his TOUR Championship debut in his seventh season. “When we played our practice rounds I thought it was … a pretty difficult test. It was nice to get off to a pretty fast start, making four birdies in a row,â€� said Stanley, who started his day with two pars before making birdie on Nos. 3-6. He is projected to finish second in the FedExCup with a victory. All 30 players at the TOUR Championship are capable of claiming the Cup, though. Stanley finished 34th and 31st in the FedExCup in 2011 and 2012, his first two PGA TOUR seasons. He soon struggled, though, and fell outside the top 150 in both 2014 and 2015 before narrowly sneaking into last season’s playoffs. He had to finish T14 at last year’s Wyndham Championship, the final event of the PGA TOUR’s regular season, just crack the top 125 in the FedExCup. He returned to the winner’s circle at the Quicken Loans National in July and added four other top-10s this season. Stanley ranks in the top 10 in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (7th) and Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (10th). Stanley and Dustin Johnson are the only other players to rank in the top 10 in both categories. Stanley missed just three fairways and four greens Thursday. SPIETH DOING SPIETH THINGS Jordan Spieth’s TOUR Championship, and his quest for a second FedExCup, got off to an inauspicious start. He snap-hooked his opening drive and struggled to hit the ball straight on the first five holes. “I felt like it was really a grind out there and it’s just because the first four, five holes of the round I was all over the place tee-to-green,â€� Spieth said. “And then my whole back nine I had a chance to birdie all but one of the holes and only made one of them.â€� It added up to a 67 that has Spieth in sixth place. More importantly, he’s projected to retain the top spot in the FedExCup, 150 points ahead of Stanley and 200 points ahead of Justin Thomas, who played alongside Spieth on Thursday and also fired 67. The TOUR Championship’s 30-man field is re-paired after each round, but Spieth and Thomas will play together again Friday. It will be a tight race for the FedExCup as four of the top five players in the standings broke par Thursday. Any player in the top 5 can clinch the FedExCup with a win at East Lake, regardless of how his closest competition fares. Johnson was one shot behind Spieth and Thomas. He’s trying to make amends for last year’s TOUR Championship, where he held the 54-hole lead before a final-round 73 cost him both the TOUR Championship and the FedExCup. Johnson is third in the standings after winning four times this season, including the opening event of the postseason, THE NORTHERN TRUST. Jon Rahm, No. 5 in the FedExCup, also fired 67. He is trying to become the first player to win the FedExCup in his first Playoffs appearance. Marc Leishman was the only member of the top 5 to shoot over par on Thursday, firing a 1-over 71. Leishman is No. 4 in the FedExCup after finishing third at the Dell Technologies Championship and winning the BMW Championship. CALL OF THE DAY SIMPSON GETTING IN THE GROOVE Webb Simpson is thankful to be back at East Lake Golf Club after missing the past two TOUR Championships. He could be happy with the start of his first TOUR Championship since 2014 after firing 4-under 66 on Thursday. He is in second place, two shots behind Stanley. Simpson made just one bogey Thursday. He made three birdies and an eagle at the par-5 sixth, where he hit his 231-yard second shot to 6 feet. “I told somebody yesterday that I’m definitely way more thankful to be here than I was the four years in a row I came here, and it’s because of what you said. It’s hard to get here,â€� he said. “I’ve been putting a lot better, and second, I think I’ve been thinking a lot better. … I haven’t hit it great this year but I’ve hit it good enough, and the ball striking’s coming. I think the reason I haven’t won is because I haven’t been able to put together four days of good ball striking. But I have seen improvements the last couple months and hopefully I can get a tournament here soon where I do have four rounds in a row.â€� Simpson also credited an improved short game after nearly two years of work with short-game coach Pat Goss, who also developed the world-class short game of Luke Donald. Simpson started working with Goss in November 2015. The TOUR Championship field is re-paired after each round, so Simpson will play in Friday’s final group with Stanley. ODDS AND ENDS Former Florida State teammates Daniel Berger and Brooks Koepka will play together in Friday’s second-to-last group after each fired 66 on Thursday. Next week they’ll be Presidents Cup teammates, as well, as both will make their debut in the biennial. Berger finished Thursday’s round by making the day’s only eagle at the 18th hole, where he hit his 234-yard second shot to 11 feet and made the putt. Paul Casey continued his strong play at East Lake with a first-round 66. He has finished in the top five in all three of his appearances at East Lake (2010, ’15, ’16). It continues a trend of strong performances in the FedExCup Playoffs. He has finished in the top five in six of his past eight starts in the FedExCup Playoffs. SHOT OF THE DAY BEST OF SOCIAL MEDIA
For the second consecutive day, Francisco Lindor helped sink the Angels with a tiebreaking home run, launching a three-run, go-ahead shot to complete the Indians’ three-game sweep with a 4-1 victory in Thursday afternoon’s series finale at Angel Stadium.
ATLANTA, Ga. – Blake Kollin played football, basketball and lacrosse, but not golf, when Jordan Spieth won the 2015 Masters. That’s all changed now. “He made it look easy, so I just picked it up,� Kollin said before he started work Thursday. Kollin was one of two walking standard-bearers for the final pairing of Spieth and Justin Thomas in the first round of the TOUR Championship at East Lake. (Each shot 67 and was tied for sixth, three behind leader Kyle Stanley.) Skylar Thompson—she carried the sign on the front nine, Kollin on the back—also calls herself a Spieth fan. “He’s a really good role model,� she said. You may have heard there will be two more tournaments on the PGA TOUR next season, a total of 49 in the United States and eight other countries, and record prize money (more than $363 million). You’d have to say the view from 30,000 feet is a pretty good one. But what about the view from the ground? That’s not bad, either, to judge by the scene around Spieth-Thomas, the FedExCup Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, on Thursday. High school seniors Kollin and Thompson wore khaki pants and forest-green polo shirts in temperatures that reached 91 degrees. They popped red numbers into and out of their sign as Spieth birdied three straight on the front nine and Thomas made four birdies and two bogeys on the back. After the 2015 Masters, Kollin gave up lacrosse, since its season coincided with golf. Then he dropped football and basketball, too. Now he plays No. 1 for the Cambridge High team in Milton, Georgia, with a career-low of 67. Yeah, he got good fast. Thompson, also a senior, matriculates at an online charter school and will attend South Carolina on a golf scholarship starting in the fall of 2018. Her career-low is 64, but her tournament-low is 69. She has been working as a standard-bearer at this tournament since she was 12, so this week marks the end of an era. “The sign was bigger than she was,� said Pete Sutter, longtime chairman of the standard-bearers at this tournament. “I was like, really? She said, ‘I can do it!’� “The sign wasn’t bigger than I was!� Thompson said with a laugh. “Oh, okay,� Sutter said. “It wasn’t bigger than she was.� Fans waited in the stands and media and officials ringed the first tee box. Spieth shook hands with Kollin and Thompson. “Hi, I’m Jordan,� he said. Kollin marveled at his proximity to a high-profile athlete, even as he eyed another. “That’s one of the Atlanta Hawks,� he said in a whisper. “That’s Kent Bazemore.� Bazemore, 28, was hard to miss as he followed the last twosome. A 6’5’’ shooting guard for the Hawks, he stopped and posed for selfies with fans. Like everyone else, he marveled at the shot-making of Spieth-Thomas, who at times played a game of can-you-top-this. Spieth, hitting first, knocked his approach shots to 6 ½ and 3 ½ feet at the seventh and eighth holes, respectively. Thomas responded, hitting his to 5 ½ and 4 feet. Four birdies. “I’ve had it bad for four years,� Bazemore said of the golf bug, which has seen him join nearby Hawks Ridge Golf Club and play golf with fellow NBA player Stephan Curry. (They are both sponsored by Under Armour, as is Spieth.) Bazemore had a feeling Curry would do well at the Web.com Tour’s Ellie Mae Classic in August. (Curry shot 74-74 to miss the cut, but impressed.) “I played with him the week before that, at Newport National in Rhode Island,� Bazemore said. “He’d just come back from Asia, and he shot 73 with rental clubs.� Ellie Spieth, not Ellie Mae, was the one in the sweet Under Armour shoes following her big brother Thursday. She was there along with her father, Shawn, and mother, Chris. Thomas’ parents, Mike and Jani, were also following along. The two families have been tight ever since Spieth and Thomas played in the Evian Junior Masters in France a decade ago. “He calls me Mamma,� Chris Spieth said of Justin Thomas. She laughed. You get the feeling Chris’ side of the family was the source of 6’ 6’’ Steven Spieth’s height. The younger brother of Jordan, Steven Spieth played basketball for Brown and the Dallas Mavericks summer league team, and now plays professionally overseas. While Jordan was working his way through a few wayward drives on the front nine, Chris and Shawn were watching and wondering if there is a way to live stream a basketball tournament in Argentina starting Friday. Perhaps they’ll use their phones. That was partly how Miles Young and Pete Shelton followed the first-round action. Dustin Johnson (68) nearly plunked Shelton with a wide-right drive at the fifth hole, but Shelton turned lemons into lemonade, capturing the action on his smart phone. “I like that you can take pictures,� said Young, whose 9-year-old son, Cole, was also tagging along. “I like that it’s low-key. You can see the players really close, and kids get in free. Cole likes the fist-bumps. He’s gotten autographs, golf balls, a flag signed by Brandt Snedeker. “We go out to the course at home, and half the time we’re fishing balls out of the lake, or riding the cart together, but this is the key to get him really excited. When you can get this close, and get a fist-bump from Jordan Spieth, it makes all the difference.� Shelton shook his head. “He’s a better dad than me; he took his son out of school.� (Shelton has three kids, among them a 13-year-old son who wanted to be at East Lake.) “Only for a few hours,� Young replied with a sheepish smile. Shelton would peel off before the last twosome finished the front nine, leaving East Lake to get to his 9-year-old daughter’s soccer practice in time. He’s the coach. Young and his son would follow suit; Cole’s soccer practice was scheduled to start an hour later. They’ll be back, as will Bazemore, the Spieths, and standard-bearers Kollin and Thompson. They’ll all be back. Three rounds remain, and Spieth and Thomas are only 24. There’s a lot of golf to be played.
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Chargers running back Melvin Gordon is off to a slow start running the ball this season and an injury could complicate efforts to get things moving in the right direction this week. Gordon was not on the injury report at all on Wednesday, but popped up as a limited participant on Thursday. A knee ailment
