Canada’s unbeaten start to open the world ice hockey championship came to an end on Saturday, as captain Nico Hischier and Switzerland posted a 6-3 victory in Finland, while Team USA improved to 4-1 with a 3-2 win over Sweden.
TULSA, Okla. – After opening the PGA Championship with rounds of 68 and 64, Mito Pereira has taken the lead early in the third round at the PGA Championship. The 27-year-old from Chile is playing his first full season as a TOUR member and looking to make a major his first PGA TOUR victory. Here’s Five Things to Know about the leader at the PGA Championship: 1. THREE’S COMPANY Pereira earned his first PGA TOUR card by winning three times on the Korn Ferry Tour during the extended 2020-21 season, becoming the 12th player to earn a three-win promotion from that circuit and the first since 2016. His first win came at the Country Club de Bogota in February 2020. Sixteen months later, he won back-to-back starts to graduate to the PGA TOUR. In those last two events, he was 48 under par and had a 65.1 scoring average. His highest score in that span was 67. “This is crazy, man,” Pereira said after the win. “This is by far the best thing that I’ve done in my life. … It’s been a long ride. There’s been tough moments, good moments, but it’s all worth it.” It didn’t take him long to have success on the PGA TOUR. He had back-to-back top-6 finishes in July before finishing fourth at the Olympics, falling in the seven-man playoff for the bronze medal. 2. STANDING ROOM Pereira entered this week ranked 46th in the FedExCup and 100th in the world ranking. A third-place finish in the season-opening Fortinet Championship is his lone top-10 of the season. He entered the week with four consecutive top-30 finishes in individual tournaments, though, including a T17 at last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson. The stats show that ballstriking is Pereira’s strength, which is paying off this week. He’s fourth this season in greens in regulation (71.4%), 13th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (+0.67) and 30th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+0.45). He ranks outside the top 100 in both Strokes Gained metrics that measure short-game performance (Putting and Around-the-Green), however. He’s also 16th in the standings for this year’s International Presidents Cup team. 3. PHENOM-ENAL Pereira was something of a junior phenom in his native Chile. He was runner-up in the boys 10-11 division of the 2006 Optimist International Junior Golf Championship and won the 12-13 division two years later (Beau Hossler finished third, one stroke back). Pereira enrolled at the prestigious IMG Academy in Florida when he was 14 but was burnt out after six months and quit the game for two years. When he decided to start playing again, he quickly picked up where he left off, however. “I took the two years off but when I came back I knew I could do it, I knew I could get to here,” he said Friday, “and I just kept the confidence, and obviously there were some up and downs but (I’m) really happy to be here.” He won on the Chilean Professional Tour when he was 17 and embarked for Lubbock, Texas, to play one season at Texas Tech, reaching as high as No. 5 in the world amateur world ranking before turning pro in 2015 after his freshman season. The Big 12 Championship was played at Southern Hills for Pereira’s lone season with the Red Raiders. He finished eighth, nine shots back of winner Scottie Scheffler. Pereira finished third on the PGA TOUR Latinoamerica Order of Merit in 2016, racking up a win and three-other top-3 finishes, to earn Korn Ferry Tour status. He finished a solid 76th on the Korn Ferry Tour money list the next year before losing his card in 2018. He returned to Latinoamerica for one season before making it back to the KFT. 4. RISING STARS Pereira is the third Chilean to earn a PGA TOUR card, after Benjamin Alvarado and Joaquin Niemann. Pereira and Niemann, 23, have been friends since they were kids. They used to practice together daily and shared a coach, Eduardo Miguel, who still coaches both of them. Pereira also resided in Niemann’s South Florida home after the COVID-19 pandemic made international travel impossible, and had his Korn Ferry Tour trophies sent to Niemann’s home. Niemann was known in their younger days for wearing a lot of yellow. “He looked like a bee,” said Pereira. Niemann also looked up to the older Pereira. “We all grew up together,” said Carlos Bustos, another Chilean who played college golf at Florida. “Mito was always better because he was older than us. He was on another level at that age, when we were like 13, 14, I mean he was an unbelievable golfer.” Niemann went on to become the No. 1 amateur in the world before winning twice on the PGA TOUR. He and Pereira were teammates at last year’s Olympics and now look to team together again at this year’s Presidents Cup. 5. ADRENALINE JUNKY Pereira is known as a bit of an adrenaline junkie, which could help him cope with the stress of a major championship. He’s a fan of motocross and MotoGP (Grand Prix motorcycle racing). After enduring a difficult season on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2018 and failing to regain his status at Q-School, Pereira broke his collarbone when he fell off his bike. The injury may have been a blessing in disguise. “Obviously in that moment it was terrible,” he said. “But if I look back, it probably helped me a little bit. It was a month that I didn’t play. I cooled down and took all the bad things out.” He also discovered a mental coach, Eugenio Lisama, who works with Formula 1 racers and soccer players. Pereira says working with sensors on his brain and analyzing the data was “like going to the gym for your brain.” “He showed me some data of those guys and it’s unbelievable,” Pereira said about the athletes who engage their brain much quicker than he does playing golf. “But we all need our minds to be blank. That’s what he teaches and trains with me on.”
Miami Heat guard Kyle Lowry will warm up with the intention of playing, while Celtics center Robert Williams III has been ruled out for Game 3 with left knee soreness, the team announced Saturday evening.
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra says guard Kyle Lowry will warm up with the intention of playing in Game 3 Saturday night against the Boston Celtics.
The Orioles have called up catcher Adley Rutschman, and baseball’s top prospect is expected to make his major league debut Saturday against the Rays.
Left fielder Kris Bryant, who has missed 21 games while recovering from back pain, has been activated off the injured list by the Rockies.
TULSA, Okla. – Tiger Woods produced the worst PGA Championship round of his storied career, battling away to a 9-over 79 on Saturday morning at Southern Hills. In cold, wet, and blustery conditions, Woods and his surgically repaired body could not muster the charge up the leaderboard he had hoped for, instead freefalling to near the back of the pack with just one round to play. It is yet to be seen if Woods will indeed return for Sunday’s final round, such is the vigorous recovery process he endures just to tee it up. He will juggle the pride of seeing a contest through to its conclusion over the wear and tear of a body that still hopes to take part in the U.S. Open in June and the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews in July. “Well, I’m sore. I know that for a fact. We’ll do some work and see how it goes,” Woods said of the prospect of a final round appearance. On Saturday the 82-time PGA TOUR winning veteran had seven bogeys, a triple bogey and just a lone birdie marking the worst of his now 79 rounds at the PGA Championship, a major he’s claimed four times including in 2007 at Southern Hills. Woods eclipsed the 77 he shot in the opening round of the 2011 PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club as his low point in the tournament but did manage to keep under his worst major round of all-time – an 81 from the 2002 Open Championship. He made a 5-foot putt for par on the final hole to ensure his TOUR rounds in the 80s as a professional remain at just four. “I just didn’t play well. I didn’t hit the ball very well and got off to not the start I needed to get off to. I thought I hit a good tee shot down 2 and ended up in the water, and just never really got any kind of momentum on my side,” Woods lamented after finishing at 12-over for the tournament. “I couldn’t get off the bogey train there… I didn’t do anything right. I didn’t hit many good shots. Consequently, I ended up with a pretty high score.” The PGA Championship is just the second tournament of the year for the 15-time major winner as he continues his comeback from serious leg fractures suffered in a 2021 car accident. While Woods continues to compete to win, just making the cut in April’s Masters (47th place) and at Southern Hills this week is seen as a massive achievement by others, especially given the obvious pain he goes through to play. After an opening 74 Woods had showed great resilience to shoot 69 in round two. “Incredibly resilient and mentally tough,” playing partner from the opening two rounds Rory McIlroy said. “He’s feeling it… he’s feeling it on every swing… (but) he’s the ultimate pro.” “Looking at him yesterday, if that would have been me, I would have been considering pulling out and just going home, but Tiger is different and he’s proved he’s different… it was just a monumental effort.” Woods opened his third round with a nice 13-foot par save but lost his tee shot on the par-4 2nd hole into a creek that resulted in his first bogey. A run of three pars followed before disaster struck on the par-3 6th. After pulling his tee shot into another water hazard Woods missed the green from the drop zone and then failed to find the putting surface with his first chip. Unfortunately, the triple bogey was just a precursor of more to come. A bogey on the par-4 7th was followed by another on the par-4 9th when Woods hit the lip of the fairway bunker he was trying to escape and advanced the ball just four yards into the rough, leaving him with a 6-over 41 at the turn. Four straight bogeys on the back side of the course brought the specter of unwanted records into focus. But just as it appeared Woods would go without a birdie in a major championship round for the first time since the opener of the 2010 U.S. Open, the veteran poured in a 36-footer on the par-4 15th to give the hardy fans following a reason to cheer. Three pars to finish showed the fight hadn’t left the veteran despite the rough outing and he wasn’t alone as tricky winds saw others like Sepp Straka (79), Patton Kizzire (78), Maverick McNealy (78) and fellow former FedExCup champion Billy Horschel (77) also struggle.
Tiger Woods was hoping for good things on the weekend at the PGA Championship. Instead, he played his worst round ever at this event. Here is how it happened.
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