Max Verstappen joked that he hopes the stewards of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix go out for dinner with several bottles of expensive wine after they fined him €50,000 for touching Lewis Hamilton’s car following Friday qualifying.
HOUSTON – Memorial Park underwent its most recent renovation with a tournament in mind. The course’s radical transformation, overseen by one of the top names in modern course architecture, was intended to end an absence from the PGA TOUR that had lasted more than half a century. RELATED: Leaderboard | Scottie Scheffler gets mad, sets course record in Houston | Adam Schenk incurs penalty after mistakenly touching ball A dramatic finishing stretch was one of the features Tom Doak built on the new-and-improved Memorial Park, which is in its second year hosting the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open, and Doak’s design delivered late Saturday afternoon. Birdie opportunities are rare on the par-70 course that measures more than 7,400 yards. Firm greens surrounded by dramatic swales make players hesitant to fire at flags. And even when an opportunity does arise, it doesn’t come without plenty of risk. That’s especially true on the course’s 16th and 17th holes. Doak studied under Pete Dye, and he borrowed the World Golf Hall of Famer’s trademark closing trio of holes when he built Memorial Park. That includes a reachable par-5 16th surrounded by water and a demanding closing hole. The penultimate hole veers slightly from Dye’s philosophy, as Doak built a drivable par-4 with a peninsula green. Dye usually built a trademark par-3 – sometimes with an island green – for his penultimate hole. It led to a leaderboard that seemed constantly in flux during the final moments of Saturday’s third round. When it was all over, Scottie Scheffler emerged as your 54-hole leader. Scheffler is at 7-under 203. Five players – Jhonattan Vegas, Matthew Wolff, Kramer Hickok, Martin Trainer and Kevin Tway – are a stroke behind, and three more players are just two back. “It’s a placer where you can score,” Scheffler said. “It’s just difficult to.” Scheffler, who parred the final three after birdies at Nos. 14 and 15, was the rare player who was unscathed by the final three holes. Tway birdied 16 before a bogey-bogey finish dropped him from the lead. He bogeyed 17 after driving past the green, then watching his chip roll across the putting surface and into the water. After reaching the 16th green in two with a 6-iron from 230 yards, Wolff couldn’t hit the next green with a sand wedge. He thought he was playing safe when he teed off with a pitching wedge on the short par-4, but still made double-bogey after his approach went into the water. “At the end of the day, I thought I would be holding the lead,” Wolff said, “especially with a sand wedge in on 17.” Vegas, who said the 16th has always made him uncomfortable, hit his second shot into the water for the second straight day, but rebounded with a 15-foot birdie putt on the next hole. Scheffler is seeking his first PGA TOUR win, the only thing the 25-year-old hasn’t accomplished during the impressive start to his pro career. He was the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year and was the PGA TOUR’s Rookie of the Year last year. He’s advanced to the TOUR Championship in each of his first two seasons and made his Ryder Cup debut this year, beating World No. 1 Jon Rahm in Singles. He set Memorial Park’s course record Friday, shooting 8-under 62. It was his fourth round of 62 or lower since the start of the 2020 season, the most on TOUR in that span. That includes a 59 in last year’s FedExCup Playoffs. In a testament to the high variance that Memorial Park seems to create, he is 1 over par on his other 36 holes this week. “I always prefer the harder courses because I feel like I can take it deep on them still and get myself back in the tournament, which I did this week,” said Scheffler, who was 3 over after his first three holes of the week and shot 72 in the opening round. “This golf course is pretty challenging, but it’s not a golf course where if you’re playing great golf, you can’t take advantage of it.” Sunday could be a low-scoring day. In Memorial Park’s debut last year, a variety of tees and hole locations were used to create the easiest day of the week. Three players shot the then-course record of 63 in the final round. It’s likely this Sunday will provide a similar scenario. A victory, especially in his home state, would be meaningful for Scheffler, but he’s not the only one with a lot to play for Sunday. Wolff may be the hottest player on TOUR, arriving at Memorial Park after a runner-up and fifth-place finish. His resurgence comes after this year’s well-publicized mental health break. He’s once again showing the potential he displayed earlier in his career when he won just weeks after turning pro, was runner-up in last year’s U.S. Open and rose as high as 12th in the world ranking. Vegas first moved to Houston from Venezuela when he was 17 years old. He arrived without his family, and with just his clubs and a bag of clothes. He knew just 10 words of English. He qualified for the Houston Open the next year, and remembers being awestruck as he walked past legends like Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson. He calls it one of the most important weeks of his career. Trainer has endured a difficult stretch since his surprise win at the 2019 Puerto Rico Open, having made just six of 54 cuts in the last three seasons. It’s been three years since Tway won his lone PGA TOUR title. Hickok is seeking his first win. Winning at Memorial Park won’t be easy, but it should be exciting.
HOUSTON (AP) — A key figure in the U.S. victory at the Ryder Cup, now Scottie Scheffler goes after a trophy of his own in the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open. RELATED: Leaderboard | Scottie Scheffler gets mad, sets course record in Houston | Adam Schenk incurs penalty after mistakenly touching ball Scheffler pitched in from 55 feet for birdie on the 14th hole, holed a 10-foot birdie on the next hole and avoided mistakes down the closing stretch Saturday at Memorial Park for a 1-under 69 and a one-shot lead going into the final round. Scheffler, in his third year on the PGA TOUR, has a 54-hole lead for the first time. He was tied for the lead going into the final round at The American Express in 2020 and finished third. “I’m just going to go out there and try to get off to a good start and hopefully put myself out in front early and stay there,” Scheffler said. Kevin Tway had the lead until he chipped in the water and had to scramble for bogey on the par-4 17th, and then missed a 10-foot par putt on the closing hole. He shot 73 and was among five player who were one shot behind. Scheffler was at 7-under 203. Jhonattan Vegas, winless since the RBC Canadian Open four years ago, had a 68 and will be in the final group with Scheffler on Sunday. Matthew Wolff, one of the steadiest performers in the fall portion of the PGA TOUR schedule, had a 69 and gets another shot at winning for the first time since he stepped away from golf for two months earlier this year to reset. Kramer Hickok had a 70 and was in the group at 204 that included Martin Trainer, the 36-hole leader who struggled to a 74. The group two shots behind included Charles Schwab Challenge winner Jason Kokrak, who had to play 25 holes on Saturday because of a weather delay at the start of the week, and he was all over the place. Kokrak was at 8 under when he returned to play the 12th hole of the second round. He played his last seven holes in 7-over par and wound up nine shots out of the lead. He bounced back with seven birdies in his third round of 66 to right back in the hunt. Wolff also was atop the leaderboard at 8 under until he took double bogey on the 17th hole when his second shot came up short and in the water. He took a penalty drop, hit the same club to 7 feet and missed the bogey putt. “I just misjudged the wind,” Wolff said. “To this moment, I really don’t know what happened on that hole. It might have just been not as good of a lie as I thought.” Either way, he’s right in the mix in what should be a compelling finish with a dozen players within three shots of Scheffler’s lead. That includes Trainer, who took a double bogey on the front nine and then dropped consecutive shots on the back nine. But he finished with a 10-foot par that left him only one shot behind. Not bad for someone playing the weekend for only the second time since April. “I’m certainly hitting it better than I have in the recent past, even today,” Trainer said. “I think I have turned a corner and whatever happens this week happens. But I’m just excited about the future, to be playing well again.” Scheffler has been playing well ever since he left his four years’ at Texas with a business degree, first on the Korn Ferry Tour and then well enough to qualify for the Masters as a PGA TOUR rookie. He also was picked for the Ryder Cup, where he delivered one of the biggest birdie putts late in the fourth session and then took down Jon Rahm in singles. He also has contended in majors. All he’s lacking is a win, and with so many players in contention, it doesn’t figure to be easy. Scheffler had a chance to win last week, contending for the lead until one errant tee shot led to double bogey on the back nine at Mayakoba. “I feel like I’m playing solid golf right now,” Scheffler said. “I’m hitting a decent amount of fairways, a decent amount of greens, starting to roll the ball pretty good. There’s a few days where the putts may have not all gone in, but I always seem to be hitting them right around the cup at the appropriate speed so they’re bound to start falling eventually.”
Lewis Hamilton has been disqualified from qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix for a breach of F1’s technical regulations.
Max Verstappen has been fined €50,000 for touching the rear wing of championship rival Lewis Hamilton’s car after qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen has been fined €50,000 for touching the rear wing of championship rival Lewis Hamilton’s car after qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
HOUSTON – Strange things can happen when players are contending for their first PGA TOUR title. One example happened in the third round of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open, when a member of Saturday’s second-to-last group incurred a one-shot penalty after mistakenly picking up his ball. Adam Schenk’s last four rounds on the PGA TOUR had been played under lift, clean and place, but the rule was not in use during Saturday. Thinking he could clean his ball, Schenk lifted it from the fifth fairway. Schenk started the day four shots off the lead and was playing in the second-to-last group. Lift, clean and place was used all last week at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba, where Schenk missed the cut, and during the first two rounds in Houston after heavy rains soaked Memorial Park on Thursday, delaying the opening round by two hours and requiring the second round to be completed Saturday morning. Schenk, who shot 70-64 in the first two rounds in Houston, was playing alongside Kramer Hickok and Scottie Scheffler. Schenk birdied Saturday’s first hole after sticking a 208-yard approach shot within 2 feet of the hole. He parred the next three holes before his rules infraction at No. 5. He also bogeyed the eighth hole after driving into a penalty area.
Parker, one of the youngest full-time position coaches in the NFL, teaches players who are around his age.
Anthony Davis went off on the Los Angeles Lakers after an “embarrassing” loss to the Timberwolves on Friday night in which his team once again struggled in the third quarter.
The UC Riverside Highlanders got a pregame speech from Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul prior to J.P. Moorman II’s buzzer beater to beat Arizona State, 66-65, on Thursday night.
