Casey overcomes triple bogey for Open lead

A former college football player who was late to the game of golf, Billy Payne still managed to grasp its history, especially as it related to Augusta National Golf Club, where he made a relatively meteoric rise in stature at a place used to a different pace. Payne, who retired Wednesday (effective Oct. 16) as the club’s chairman, was fond of saying that he strived to maintain the ideals of Augusta National’s founders — great amateur golfer Bobby Jones and Wall Street financier Clifford Roberts — men he never met but whose legacy he strived to maintain. And yet, neither Jones nor Roberts would have been remotely familiar with any of the things Payne, 69, accomplished in his 11-year tenure as chairman. Unlike any of his five predecessors, Payne reached far beyond Augusta National’s boundaries and made the club and the Masters Tournament a force beyond one week a year in April.

Rickie Fowler and others are still on the course at Erin Hills, but now they’re chasing Justin Thomas after his historic round.