The PTO Championship at Daytona was a classic battle between the world’s best triathletes who were chomping at the bit to do just one race this year, and it was all for a good cause…. their own future.
Gonzaga and Baylor remained Nos. 1 and 2 in the AP Top 25 poll Monday after their anticipated game was called off because of positive COVID-19 tests.
SNY NFL Insider Ralph Vacchiano compliments Giants defense coordinator Patrick Graham’s use of Leonard Williams in New Yorks’ big win over Seattle. Plus, Ralph breaks down how the run game lead by Wayne Gallman exploded in the second half.
Viktor Hovland's 12-foot birdie putt to win the Mayakoba Golf Classic presented by UNIFIN, the 12th and final event of the fall, moved him up to third in the FedExCup and put a bow on a wildly entertaining fall season. The fall also provided a lot of answers. We know whose biohacking has worked. (Take a bow, Bryson DeChambeau.) We know who won't stop knocking on the door. (Make room for Maui-bound Stewart Cink, Brian Gay, Jason Kokrak, Martin Laird, Carlos Ortiz, Robert Streb and - deep breath - Hudson Swafford.) We were entertained, again, by Tiger and Phil. Woods made a career-high 10 at the 12th hole at the Masters - then erased most of that mess with five birdies in his last six holes. Mickelson won the Dominion Energy Charity Classic for his second victory in as many starts on PGA TOUR Champions, then carried Charles Barkley on his back for 18 holes. We saw three new courses, with Houston's iconic Memorial Park in it for the long haul. THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK and ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD were stopgaps. Fittingly, there were new course records at all three. Xander Schauffele shot 8-under 64 at Shadow Creek; Richy Werenski 11-under 61 at Sherwood; Hideki Matsuyama 7-under 63 at Memorial Park. (Justin Thomas also shot 5-under 65 at the Winged Foot U.S. Open.) None of them won. Harry Higgs (Safeway Open), Scott Harrington (Sanderson Farms Championship) and Brendan Steele (Mayakoba Golf Classic) each made an albatross. None of them won, either. Korn Ferry Tour pro Will Zalatoris made a hole-in-one at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, then earned Special Temporary Membership on TOUR, a different sort of victory. We witnessed brawn (DeChambeau at the U.S. Open; Dustin Johnson at the Masters), and brains (three 40-something winners). We saw a salute to the golden oldies (Fred Funk, 64, made the cut at the Bermuda Championship despite averaging less than 245 yards off the tee). Ageless Bernhard Langer, 63, became the oldest to make the Masters cut. Playing with DeChambeau on Sunday at Augusta, the PGA TOUR Champions star hit hybrids and 3-woods into most of the par 4s; DeChambeau, meanwhile, scraped the clouds with his tee shots and drove the third green. And Bernie beat Bryson 71-73. Surprising? Certainly. The fall was that. Cink, 47, won the Safeway Open, breaking a win drought of 4,074 days since the 2009 Open Championship. He is currently fourth in the FedExCup. Last season he was 144th. Gay, 48, won the Bermuda Championship for his first title in over seven years. Kokrak made 26 birdies and won THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK for his first win at 35. Because it's like they say: If at first you don't succeed, wait until your 233rd career start. Laird won a playoff over Austin Cook and Matthew Wolff at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, his first trophy since the 2013 Valero Texas Open. Swafford (Corales Punta Cana Resort & Club Championship) hadn't won since the 2017 The American Express, and Sergio Garcia, 40, putted with his eyes wide shut to steady his stroke at the Sanderson Farms Championship. It was his first victory on TOUR since the 2017 Masters, and he pointed to the sky and blinked back tears while remembering his two uncles who had died from the coronavirus. "It's hard," Garcia said, which also described so much of 2020. Ortiz broke through at the Vivint Houston Open in his 118th career TOUR start, marking his first victory of any kind since his three-win season on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2014. Then he broke down. Streb won The RSM Classic six years after winning the 2014 RSM, a stretch of 165 starts. The fall wasn't entirely about winning; Matthew Wolff was loading up on seconds long before Thanksgiving. The runner-up to DeChambeau at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, Wolff was runner-up to DeChambeau again at the U.S. Open, and in his very next start lost a playoff (Laird, Austin Cook) to finish T2 at the Shriners. Yep, three near-misses in 10 starts. He's ninth in the FedExCup. That's a solid fall; Wolff might even make the season-ending TOUR Championship at East Lake, Sept. 2-5, 2021. If he does, he'll likely run into No. 1 Johnson. Wait. Him again? Yep, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The winner of last season's points race is in pole position yet again. That's because Johnson shot 20 under at Augusta to break the Masters scoring record (Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth) by two. He also finished T2 at the Vivint Houston Open, and T6 at the U.S. Open. Any questions? Johnson is 252 points ahead of No. 2 DeChambeau, who along with Mickelson and Adam Scott experimented with extra-long driver shafts. Thomas revealed a grudge match with Charlie Woods, 11, as Justin and dad Mike, and Tiger and son Charlie, anticipate their first-ever appearance at the PNC Championship in Orlando later this month. Said Thomas, "We’ll have that like inner tournament within a tournament." That was the fall - a tournament within a tournament. Because as great as it was, it was just a taste of 2021, when Dustin and Justin, Viktor and Xander, will return with the rest of them. Happy holidays and see you in Maui for the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Jan. 7-10.
A win over Baltimore in Week 14 all but clinches a postseason berth
The weeks are starting to run together into a seemingly never-ending avalanche of news and adjustments as the NFL tries to navigate a season in the middle of a pandemic. Monday evening’s visit by the red-hot (by NFC East standards) Washington Football Team (4-7) was originally scheduled for Sunday before being bumped back by the NFL after Pittsburgh’s game against Baltimore set for Thanksgiving night was moved three times because of a COVID-19 outbreak among the Ravens. Yes, the Steelers are unbeaten.
Jets Wire takes a look at some standout stats from the Jets’ 31-28 Week 13 loss vs. the Las Vegas Raiders.
After a fall series where FedExCup storylines had skewed focus towards a resurgent old brigade it seemed fitting to end the 2020 portion of this season with a reminder of the young talent we've been blessed with of late. Viktor Hovland notched up PGA TOUR win No. 2 at the Mayakoba Golf Classic presented by UNIFIN at a rain soaked El Camaleon, making the 23-year-old Norwegian just the fifth European player (since 1945) to earn multiple TOUR titles before turning 24. It's an esteemed list that includes Rory McIlroy, Seve Ballesteros, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm. Here’s five things you may have missed from the shootout on the Mexican coast. 1. Viktor Hovland is a character we can all love The Norwegian former U.S. Amateur champion has been dubbed the smiling assassin at times because he just always appears to be having a great time. He portrays a player who doesn't take the consequences inevitable in this great game too seriously, and as such makes him easy to cheer for. He claims he's terrible in the pressure moments ... claims he's a mess and not comfortable. But yet there was an apparent air of calm over him as he sent his tee shot to the fairway, his approach to 10-feet, and his final putt into the hole on the 72nd hole to win by a shot. If there is a weakness in the youngster's raw game, it is around and on the greens, where at times he can be a little unreliable chipping and putting. In Mayakoba he was 5 of 11 in scrambling for the week and had missed a short birdie putt at the 15th that would have made life extremely tough for the other competitors. Soon after a terrible approach to the 16th had him well short and in sand some 40-yards from the pin. But instead of letting it be the start of a downward spiral, Hovland stuck his third to about the same length as the putt he missed moments earlier. This time, he nailed it. That par left him in prime position to control his destiny and by the time he came to the last he knew birdie would win the title. Facing a 10-footer for it all he smoothed it in like he was one of the best putters on TOUR. Brilliant stuff. Read more here. 2. A second win can be tougher than the first While Hovland chalked up TOUR win No. 2 there were a handful of other players who were looking to do the same that obviously did not cross what can be an elusive barrier. Runner-up Aaron Wise broke through a couple of seasons ago at the AT&T Byron Nelson and positioned himself beautifully on Sunday a couple of groups ahead of Hovland. A birdie on the 15th had Wise at eight-under on his round and part of the lead at 19-under, making the former NCAA champ a huge threat. But despite some great shots coming home he was unable to sink one more critical putt, leaving the door open for Hovland to pounce. Clearly though, Wise is going to find himself with more chances in the coming months and years. Chances doesn't mean wins though. Just ask Tony Finau. With the help of a new putting setup Finau was tied second through two rounds and after an ace and three birdies on Saturday's front nine he was closing in on the lead. Even a poor back nine didn't take him out of it for the final round but it wasn't to be and a T8 finish adds to his near misses. Since his win at the 2016 Puerto Rico Open, Finau has 34 top-10s without another triumph and he hasn't finished worse than 19th in the FedExCup over the last four seasons. Emiliano Grillo jumped out on TOUR in the 2015-16 season and won the Safeway Open first up. He would have been forgiven for thinking it was easy to do. Over the last three seasons he's threatened a few times with four thirds and a runner up so when he took a healthy lead through 36 and 54 holes in Mexico it appeared it might be time. But while others tore up the soft layout on Sunday Grillo shot a 1-over 72 to freefall to a T8 finish. Adam Long, who stared down Phil Mickelson to win his lone TOUR title, looked steeled when he birdied the 16th on Sunday to pull within one of the lead but his next tee shot was wild and with it went his chances of doubling his career win tally. He would settle for a T3 finish. The bottom line? Golf is hard. Winning is very hard. Winning more than once is incredibly hard. 3. Mexico's finest to wait at least one more year for home win Eventually it will happen. There was great hope pre-tournament that this could be the year a Mexican winner could emerge in what has been the countries first regular TOUR stop for well over a decade now. Carlos Ortiz, a winner at the recent Vivint Houston Open, was more than solid on the way to a T8 finish that moved him up to sixth in the FedExCup standings. Abraham Ancer was left to rue a slow start with his 1-over 72 opening round but fought valiantly back to be T12. Roberto Diaz, Armando Favela, Aaron Terrazas and Isidro Benitez were unable to make the cut but all will take invaluable experience away from the week. 4. The production line appears never-ending While we sat back and applauded Hovland's gutsy win his fellow college teammate, and current housemate, Austin Eckroat casually finished T12 as an amateur. The Oklahoma State senior gave a glimpse into some more of the talent coming down the pipeline. Another of those young guns, 18-year-old Akshay Bhatia, Monday qualified into the tournament and once again showed glimpses of why he's backed himself to be professional in lieu of college. After a bogey-bogey opening on Thursday the youngster fought back to shoot 4-under and showed similar resilience to notch up three birdies late in round two after a double bogey threatened to send him home early. His end result of T52 is a little misleading as he dropped shots late Sunday firing at pins with aggressive intent. 5. We lost a legend this past week The news of the passing of Peter Alliss, who was a highly successful European Tour player before becoming the voice of golf in the UK for decades on television, was certainly sad for the golf community. A member of eight Ryder Cup teams, Alliss won 31 times worldwide and was also an accomplished course designer and author. But perhaps his greatest contributions were with a microphone, where on the BBC in England, and the ABC in the U.S., he was arguably without peer talking viewers through the action. Take some time to read about his influence on the game here.
Sergio Perez is still somehow without a race seat for 2021, but his remarkable first win in F1 at the Sakhir Grand Prix showed how much he still has left to offer a top team.
Sports Betting News’ Fantasy Football Live crew covers the breaking news, important injuries and helps managers set their lineups for Week 15 of the season.
