Brooks Koepka says Sergio Garcia acted ‘like a child’ during outburst

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Rafa Cabrera Bello shot a 5-under 65 on Saturday to join Ben Crane and Stewart Cink in a three-way tie for the lead after three rounds at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. Cabrera Bello, a 33-year-old from Spain, has four international victories, but has never won on the PGA TOUR. He’s 91st in the FedExCup Standings. He had a good start on Saturday, with birdies on three of his first five holes. He opened up a three shot lead at 11-under after a seven-foot birdie putt on No. 5, but dropped back to the field after three bogeys on the back nine. Crane shot a 68 while Cink had a 69 to tie Cabrera Bello at 9-under 201. The 44-year-old Cink has gradually improved his game since missing several weeks last year to help care for his wife Lisa, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. He qualified for the U.S. Open on Monday in Ohio and has now had three solid rounds at the par-70 TPC Southwind course to contend for his first victory since winning the 2009 British Open. Crane won the FedEx St. Jude Classic in 2014. Luke List and Chad Campbell both shot a 66 and are one stroke behind the leaders. List made two eagles on the back nine to vault into contention. Campbell, who recently turned 43, hasn’t won a tournament since the 2007 Viking Classic. He started Saturday five shots back of the leaders, but charged up the leaderboard with five birdies and only one bogey. Chez Reavie, Charl Schwartzel and Sebastian Munoz started the third round with a one shot lead over Cink, but all of them struggled. Reavie is still in contention after shooting a 72 and is tied with Matt Jones and Kevin Chappell at 7-under, two shots behind the leaders. Schwartzel shot a 74 and Munoz a 75.

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HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — Stewart Cink maintained his five-stroke lead and set another scoring mark at the RBC Heritage with a 2-under 69 on Saturday, moving closer to his third victory at Harbour Town Golf Links. RELATED: Leaderboard | Wesley Bryan back in happy place at RBC Heritage Cink, 47, cooled off from his pace in the first two rounds, when he shot a pair of 63s for his lowest career 36-hole score and shattered the event’s halfway scoring mark shared by Jack Nicklaus and Phil Mickelson. This time, Cink scrambled his way to 18-under 195, also a tournament mark for lowest 54-hole score. The record had been held by Justin Leonard at 16-under 197 in 2002. PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa was at 13 under after a 67. Emiliano Grillo of Argentina had a 69 and was another shot behind in third. Matt Wallace of England and Sung-jae Im of South Korea were tied at 11 under. Wallace shot 65 and Im 69. While Cink slowed down, no one else could dent his large lead amid Harbour Town’s narrow fairways and smallish greens. That left Cink in prime position for a third plaid winner’s jacket for his collection after finishing first in 2000 and 2004. Cink rallied from behind in both of his previous wins here. His challenge 17 years later will be maintaining his poise on a course where front-runners are often upended. Only once in the past eight tournaments here as the third-round leader come out on top — and that was Webb Simpson last year. Corey Conners began the day five shots behind Cink and finished with a 72. He was in a group of four at 10 under that included defending champ Simpson. Simpson, who set the scoring mark of 22 under last June, had the round’s lowest score at 64. While the first two rounds showed off Cink’s accuracy, this one called on his scrambling ability to stay out front. He was right off the tee on No. 1 and left of the fairway on No. 3, the latter miscue leading to his first bogey since Thursday’s opening hole. Cink slammed the door on any hope he might falter with back-to-back birdies on the fourth and fifth holes to restore the big lead. On the back nine, Cink saved par after driving onto the pine straw on No. 11 and again on the next hole after his tee shot stopped against a small, loose branch left of the fairway. When Cink rolled an 8-footer for birdie on the 14th — his first in 40 rounds on that tricky par 3 — he had a six-shot lead. Any hope of the world’s top-ranked golfer, Dustin Johnson, making a third-round charge ended with a double-bogey 5 on the par-3 seventh. He shot a 71 and remained at 5 under.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Fifty-three weeks ago, Amanda Hadley felt helpless as she watched her husband compete at the Wells Fargo Championship. His slump had become so severe that he’d considered taking an indefinite leave from the game. Now Chesson Hadley was struggling to two scores in the mid-70s at Eagle Point Golf Club in Wilmington, North Carolina. He had no idea how to fix a game that was good enough to win on the PGA TOUR just three years earlier. “It was the saddest for me watching him, that tournament. He just looked lost,� she said. “That’s heartbreaking to watch. I think that’s when he actually hit rock bottom.� Now Chesson Hadley is near the top of THE PLAYERS Championship leaderboard. The first-round co-leader shot a 69 early Friday to finish 36 holes at 9 under par. Despite playing his final two holes in 3 over, he was a stroke behind co-leaders Charl Schwartzel and Patrick Cantlay after the morning wave was finished.  “I did a lot of great things, and I’m really not worried about the last two holes for a second,� Chesson Hadley said. He hit his tee shot into the water at No. 17 and failed to get up-and-down from right of the 18th green. Every player in the field will likely endure a similar stretch this week. Such is the nature of the penal Stadium Course. That’s why resiliency is a requirement for any PLAYERS champion. Chesson Hadley’s trials over the past year should come in handy as he chases the largest title of his career. He was 588th in the Official World Golf Ranking a year ago and wasn’t at TPC Sawgrass for the first time in four years. He was back on the Web.com Tour and in a “dark spot, not only in golf but in life,� he said. “He knew what was wrong, but he didn’t know how to fix it,� Amanda Hadley said. Chesson Hadley started to see his game turn around after reuniting with longtime swing coach, Jeff Paton, last spring. He finished second at the Rex Hospital Open in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, in June, then won the LECOM Health Challenge the following month. He sobbed into his baseball cap after his win was complete. “You start to spiral, lose your confidence and get negative,� he said that day. “I’ve gone from the top to the bottom, and it doesn’t take long.� Another win came in the Web.com Tour Finals, earning Chesson Hadley the Web.com Tour’s Player of the Year award. Then he began the PGA TOUR season with three consecutive top-four finishes. He has risen more than 500 spots in the world ranking since and is now 19th in the FedExCup. His six top-10s this season are second-most on TOUR. “It certainly is something to be proud of, to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move forward when you’re kind of down, scraping the bottom of the barrel,� Chesson Hadley said. “You can only dwell on that for so long. You have to keep moving forward and getting better.� The statistics say that iron play has been his biggest improvement. He is fourth on the PGA TOUR in strokes gained: approach-the-green (+0.97) after ranking 91st and 143rd in that statistic in his previous two PGA TOUR seasons. His confidence with those clubs has allowed him to play safely on the Stadium Course’s tee shots that make him uncomfortable. He has hit 20 of 28 greens this week and leads the field in strokes gained: putting, gaining nearly eight strokes on the greens through two rounds.  He made a 44-footer to birdie the fifth hole in the first round and a 24-footer for birdie on No. 15 on Friday. He had an 11-foot eagle putt at the next hole to reach 13 under, but missed that opportunity. “Off the top of my head, I think it was the first time I saw him miss when he had a chance,� said playing partner Matthew Fitzpatrick. “He holed everything he looked at.� Hadley has made all 30 putts from inside 10 feet this week, including all seven from 5 to 10 feet. He needed just 24 putts Thursday, during what he described as a “blackout� performance on the greens, and 27 on Friday. He already has won once at TPC Sawgrass, at the 2013 Web.com Tour Championship. That tournament was played on the property’s other course, Dye’s Valley. Hadley won two Web.com Tour titles that year, then won the Puerto Rico Open and was named the PGA TOUR’s 2014 Rookie of the Year. He was flirting with the top 50 in the world ranking after his win in Puerto Rico. He finished 49th in the FedExCup as a rookie but fell to 98th the following season. He missed 13 of 27 cuts in 2016 and finished 159th in the FedExCup to lose his card. “It’s a testimony to his character to get as far down as he did and come back up,� Amanda Hadley said. “I would attribute that to his faith and to his work ethic. … I knew he was going to bounce back. It just depended on how long it was going to take.� From considering quitting to contending at THE PLAYERS, Chesson Hadley has come a long way in a year.

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