Jameis Winston or Tom Brady? Tyler Boyd, Michael Crabtree or Marvin Jones? Start Nick Chubb? Ben Standig answers these questions and offers other thoughts entering Week 7.
Newly elected World Golf Hall of Famer Retief Goosen tees it up for the first time since getting the call, while Ryan Armour defends a title for the first time as the PGA TOUR comes to Mississippi for the 33rd consecutive year. Lucas Glover, fresh from retaining his card via the Web.com Tour Finals, joins Goosen to give the Sanderson Farms Championship two former U.S. Open winners. The roster also includes former FedExCup champion Bill Haas, trying to lock down full TOUR status as he plays out a medical extension. FIELD NOTES: Sungjae Im, fourth at the Safeway Open after winning the Web.com Tour earnings title, tees it up in a short turnaround after playing THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in his native South Korea. Im, Armour and J.J. Spaun are the only entrants to take on the trans-Pacific turnaround. … Jhonattan Vegas, unable to compete on the Asia Swing while dealing with passport issues in his native Venezuela, resumes his season in Mississippi. He tied for 53rd at the Safeway Open. … With the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking qualified for the WGC-HSBC Champions in China, Dylan Frittelli (No. 73) is the highest ranked player in the field. … Im and Glover are among 49 graduates in the field from the Web.com Tour Regular Season or Finals. The only absentee: Finals money leader Denny McCarthy. … Dicky Pride is set to make his 20th start in Mississippi, extending his own longevity mark. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 300 points. STORYLINES: Mississippi has become a haven for first-time winners, with five of the past seven champions making it their first. Armour’s victory followed Cody Gribble (2016), Peter Malnati (2015), Nick Taylor (‘14) and Chris Kirk (‘11). … In all, 11 players have made the Sanderson Farms Championship their first PGA TOUR triumph. … Haas, who missed a chunk of the spring after injuries in a fatal auto accident near the Genesis Open, has two starts left to earn 68 FedExCup points that would lock up full TOUR privileges for 2018-19. A top-10 finish in Napa earned him an extra start. … Goosen tees it up for the first time since a missed cut at the Wyndham Championship in August. He’s seeking his first top-10 finish since the FedEx St. Jude Classic last June. … U.S. entrants have won 21 of the past 23 editions in Mississippi, including 13 of the past 14. Canada’s Nick Taylor won in 2014, snapping a run of 10 straight U.S. winners, and England’s Luke Donald captured the 2002 edition. COURSE: Country Club of Jackson, 7,421 yards, par 72. Utilizing the Dogwood and Azalea nines from a 27-hole complex built by Dick Wilson in 1962, CCJ now enjoys its fifth year as Sanderson Farms host. Six Mississippi State Amateurs have been contested at CCJ, most recently in 2015, and the Southern Junior Amateur made an appearance in 2014. The club, which dates back to 2014, also played a key role in Mississippi history as a 1962 raid on the Carnival Ball turned up gallons of illegal liquor and prompted legislators to end the state’s prohibition. 72-HOLE RECORD: 263, Dan Halldorson (1986 at Hattiesburg GC). CC of Jackson record: 268, Cody Gribble (2016). 18-HOLE RECORD: 61, Keith Clearwater (2nd round, 1996 at Annandale GC). CC of Jackson record: 62, Roberto Castro (1st round, 2015). LAST YEAR: Armour finally captured that elusive first PGA TOUR victory, pulling away with a 4-under-par 68 for a five-shot triumph. The 41-year-old Ohio native was the only man to break 70 all four days, opening with a 66 and carding nothing worse than a 68 for the entire week. A third-round 67 opened a five-shot gap heading into the final day, and six birdies kept any challengers at bay. Victory came in Armour’s 105th career TOUR start, dating back to 2007, and he had just four top-10 finishes during that decade. It also came just a month after regaining his card via the Web.com Tour Finals, where a runner-up showing at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship secured his status. Chesson Hadley led the chase pack, his second top-three finish of the new season after earning his card back via the Web.com Tour Finals. Jonathan Randolph, from nearby Brandon, Mississippi, was third after a closing 67. HOW TO FOLLOW TELEVISION: Thursday-Sunday, 2:30-5:30 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). PGA TOUR LIVE: None. RADIO: Thursday-Friday, noon-5:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 1-5:30 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com).
Sheldon Creed secured the ARCA Series championship on Friday in his first full season in the lower-tier developmental series. Creed has wins at Michigan, Gateway and Iowa.
Justin Rose, who chased down Dustin Johnson a year ago to set his FedExCup-winning season into motion, makes his first start of the new PGA TOUR campaign when he defends his crown in at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Johnson also is back for another shot at a second WGC-HSBC title, now five years after capturing his first. Newly crowned Player of the Year Brooks Koepka and fellow major titleholders Francesco Molinari and Patrick Reed also highlight the first WGC lineup of the 2018-19 TOUR season. FIELD NOTES: Rory McIlroy returns to Shanghai after a year’s hiatus, giving the field four of the top five in the current Official World Golf Ranking. McIlroy was fourth two years ago, but sat out the final three months of 2017 to let a rib injury heal. … In all, the lineup boasts 19 of the top 30 in the rankings. … Rose, McIlroy and the “MoliWood� duo of Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood headline a reunion of 10 members from last month’s winning European Ryder Cup squad. … Johnson and Koepka are among four U.S. Ryder Cup members headed to China, joined by Reed and Tony Finau. … Brandt Snedeker, winner at the Wyndham Championship two months ago, and Paul Casey are among 12 men set to play all three stops on the TOUR’s Asia Swing. … Snedeker, Chez Reavie and Emiliano Grillo are the only ones among that dozen who also teed it up at the Safeway Open to start the new season. … Haotong Li, winner of the Dubai Desert Classic last January, heads a faction of seven Chinese entrants. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 550 points. STORYLINES: Johnson returns to the scene of last year’s staggering finish, where a closing 77 allowed Rose to overcome an eight-shot deficit entering the final day. Nonetheless, Johnson’s five career WGC titles are No. 2 all time behind Tiger Woods (18). … Rose, whose win last year was the first of three in the final 10 weeks of 2017, is heating up again. The FedExCup champ was no worse than fourth in each of the final three Playoffs events, a key contributor to Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph and eighth at the British Masters. … All but two of the previous 12 HSBC Champions winners have come from no lower than 30th in the world rankings. The exceptions: Y.E. Yang (77th/2006) and Russell Knox (85th/2015). … The HSBC Champions wraps up the PGA TOUR’s three-week Asia Swing and stands as the final stop in 2018 that brings together most of the top players from around the globe. … Three events follow on the TOUR calendar (Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, OHL Classic at Mayakoba, The RSM Classic), while the European Tour hits the homestretch of its Race to Dubai season pursuit. COURSE: Sheshan International GC (West), 7,261 yards, par 72. Set amid 1,000-year-old gingko trees, man-made waterways and a natural quarry, Sheshan International is one of China’s most exclusive clubs and has played host throughout the event’s 14-year existence except for a 2012 venture to Mission Hills. The Nelson & Haworth design, built in the shadow of Sheshan Mountain, opened in 2004 as the Shanghai region’s first golf club. Tiger Woods once praised the layout as “the crowning jewel of all of Asian golf.� To create the course’s drastic elevation changes, crews reportedly moved more than 2 million cubic yards of earth. 72-HOLE RECORD: 264, Dustin Johnson (2013). 18-HOLE RECORD: 62, Martin Kaymer (3rd round, 2013), Danny Willett (4th round, 2015). LAST YEAR: Rose became the beneficiary of Johnson’s stunning Sunday, as Johnson failed to make a birdie and watched his six-stroke lead dissipate to nothing. The English pro still found himself six shots behind with eight to play, but reeled off six birdies in that closing stretch on the way to a closing 67. A birdie at the par-3 17th, where his tee shot stopped 2 feet from the flagstick, pushed Rose to the front and left it for Johnson to answer. Needing an eagle at the par-5 18th to force a playoff, Johnson wound up hitting his second shot into the water. That left the world No. 1 to join Greg Norman (1996 Masters) and Sergio Garcia (2005 Wells Fargo Championship) for the largest final-round lead surrendered in PGA TOUR history. Rose prevailed for the first time since his Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, winning again a week later in Turkey and ending his year with victory at the Indonesian Masters. HOW TO FOLLOW TELEVISION: Wednesday-Thursday, 10 p.m.-4 a.m. ET (Golf Channel); Friday-Saturday, 11 p.m.-4 a.m. (GC). PGA TOUR LIVE: None. RADIO: None.
The Dodgers can clinch their second consecutive National League championship on Friday with a win over the Brewers in Game 6 at Miller Park. The last time the Dodgers won back-to-back pennants was 1977-78. The Brewers will be looking to force a Game 7 and keep their hopes alive for a first pennant in 36 years.
The longtime NBA friends and teammates were separated in the offseason when the Raptors traded DeMar DeRozan to the Spurs for Kawhi Leonard.
Sebastian Vettel has been handed a three-place grid penalty for the U.S. Grand Prix after failing to slow for red flags during Friday practice.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora said that Chris Sale, who has been sidelined with a stomach ailment, will start Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday, and David Price will ‘probably’ start Game 2.
Gene Haas says the performance advantage of Formula One’s top three teams makes it feel like the rest are competing in a different racing class.
Wade Miley took the mound in Milwaukee and the Dodgers wasted no time as David Freese led off the game with a solo homer to right center.
