Pilot injured when blimp goes down near U.S. Open in Wisconsin

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SAN FRANCISCO — Jason Day took his first step toward a return to the spotlight in the majors Thursday at the PGA Championship. Brooks Koepka never seems to leave. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Tiger looks solid in Round 1 | DeChambeau snaps driver Day took advantage of a TPC Harding Park that never felt this accommodating during the practice rounds. With only a mild breeze and a welcome appearance by the sunshine, he finished his bogey-free round of 5-under 65 with an approach to 6 feet for birdie on No. 9, the toughest hole on the course at 518 yards. That gave him a share of the lead with Brendon Todd, whose round was equally impressive. Playing in the afternoon, as the wind strengthened, Todd made seven birdies and finished with a 10-foot par putt. They were one shot ahead of nine players, a group that included major champions from years gone by, a PGA TOUR rookie and the one guy — Koepka — who shows up at every major no matter what kind of shape his game is in. Koepka is the two-time defending champion, presented the opportunity this week to become only the seventh player in the 160-year history of major championship golf to win the same major three years in a row. It was last done 64 years ago. He’s still a little annoyed that he missed a similar chance last year down the Pacific coast at Pebble Beach, when he finished runner-up in his bid for a third straight U.S. Open. Koepka hasn’t won in more than a year. His left knee has been bothering him since last August. No matter. After a slow start, he powered his way to six birdies and made a series of key putts for par — and one 12-footer for bogey — that gave him an ideal start to this major. He was at 66 with eight other players, a list that included former major winners Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer and Zach Johnson, rising star Xander Schauffele and tour rookie Scottie Scheffler. “It’s only 18 holes right now,” Koepka said. “I feel good. I feel confident. I’m excited for the next three days. I think I can definitely play a lot better. Just need to tidy a few things up, and we’ll be there come Sunday on the back nine.” Tiger Woods ran off three birdies in a four-hole stretch toward the end of his round that offset a few mistakes. He opened with a 68, a solid start for a 15-time major champion who has played just one tournament in the last six months. Woods put a new putter into play — this one is a little longer, which he says helps him practice longer without straining his surgically repaired back — and it came in handy. He made a 30-foot birdie early. He was most pleased with a 20-foot par putt on No. 18 as he made the turn. And he was thrilled with the weather. “I thought anything today in the red was going to be good,” Woods said. In this case, there was a lot of good to go around. Just under one-third of the field –47 players — broke par. That included Bryson DeChambeau, who broke his driver on the seventh hole after another vicious swing. Oddly enough, it finally gave way when he leaned on it ever so slightly while picking up his tee. He was able to replace it and challenged the lead — he was 4 under through 10 — until he slid back to a 68. Instead of the wind and chill and the thick marine layer, it was pleasant enough to make this feel like a casual round of golf. It sounded like that, too. Woods is used to tournament golf in the COVID-19 era. Spectators have not been allowed at any tournament since the PGA TOUR returned two months ago. So that was nothing new. Still, there was a starter speaking into a microphone on the first tee, and he stuck with the tradition when introducing past PGA champions. Woods has won it four times. “It still funny,” Rory McIlroy said. “You know, `99, 2000, 2006, 2007 PGA champion, Tiger Woods. And then there’s nothing. That’s pretty interesting. That’s definitely different.” McIlroy, Woods and Justin Thomas, the No. 1 player in the world, each started with a birdie on No. 10 to no applause. McIlroy overcame three straight bogeys early in his round for an even-par 70. Thomas was going along fine until a pair of double bogeys, one on the seventh hole when his ball never came down from a Monterey Cypress tree. He shot 71. The start was a good sign for Day, the former No. 1 player in the world, because he has struggled so much since his last win two years ago. His back gives him trouble. Off the course, his mother was battling lung cancer in Australia. And then he finally made a clean break from his longtime coach and lifetime mentor, Collin Swatton. But he registered three top 10s coming into the PGA Championship, and his confidence is growing. Ditto for Koepka. He missed the cut at the 3M Open in Minnesota two weeks ago, went home to Florida and during one range session was so frustrated he heaved a few clubs. But a quick video review and some technical work revealed his weight was on the wrong side. He made the adjustment and tied for second last week at a World Golf Championship. And this is a major. Big Game Brooks is at his best in these. “He seems to find his comfort zone in these tournaments, in these environments, for whatever reason that is,” McIlroy said. “I think we are all just lucky that he doesn’t find it every other week.”

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After just missing out on playing in the TOUR Championship last season, Adam Long is already motivated early in the 2020-21 campaign to get to East Lake. Long fired an 8-under-par 64 Saturday at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and leads by two heading into Sunday's final round. He's looking for his second PGA TOUR victory after winning The American Express in 2019 as a rookie. Although Long captured his maiden TOUR title in 2019, he missed 16 cuts and finished 69th on the FedExCup standings that season. Last season he was much more steady. He missed only seven cuts and notched two runner-up results (at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and the 3M Open) but he ended up 31st on the FedExCup standings. RELATED: Leaderboard | Lashley feels good after Saturday 65 Long just missed a spot at East Lake after Mackenzie Hughes (his playing partner Saturday at Corales) converted a par save on the 72nd hole at the BMW Championship to earn one of the final spots up for grabs at the TOUR Championship. "That was tough, honestly," said Long of being the-guy-on-the-bubble a few weeks ago. "I was inside the number down the stretch those last handful of events and just didn’t get it done. I didn’t play well enough to do it. "Obviously there were a lot of scenarios that could have happened that would have helped me get in, but I didn’t take care of my own business." Long said being on the cusp of earning a spot at East Lake made him realize how important the events on the fall portion of the TOUR schedule are in the long run. "I already kind of knew that, but these tournaments matter in September and October. At a couple of points (during the season) I was only (outside the top-30 in the FedExCup standings) by a couple of points," he said. "I want to get there. I know that I’ve proven that I can and I know that I want to. I was pretty close last year obviously, so it would be a dream. That’s a big goal of mine this year." Long has leaned on his putting to get him to the top of the leaderboard through three rounds in the Dominican Republic. On Saturday at Corales he had nine one-putts on his last 10 holes. "It was nice when those days are like that where you’re just kind of feeling the putter and you’re just making putts," said Long. "It was nice. I wasn’t thinking about a whole lot of things, I was just trying to make everything." Long's 64 is tied for the low round of the week so far. He made four birdies on both the front and back nines Saturday, including rattling off three-in-a-row on No's 12-14. "I didn't have much going today and I was watching Adam play awesome, so it was like getting run over by a semi," said Hughes of Long's Saturday stretch. Hughes chipped in twice on the back nine en route to making three birdies in a row and will be in the penultimate pairing Sunday. Long, who finished 13th on the 2018 Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season money list to earn a TOUR card, is one of 12 players in the Dominican Republic who was also at the U.S. Open a week ago. He finished T13 there, his highest such result in a major championship. It's a big contrast from Winged Foot this week, he said, but he's taken the adjustments in stride. "That was just such a mental grind; it was just trying to hit a fairway," said Long of the U.S. Open setup. "This is more about making birdies, so it’s been a bit of an adjustment getting used to different greens and all that. "But I’ve been (to Corales) before and I’ve always liked coming here, so I’m here." Now he's trying to get back to another place he's been before - the PGA TOUR winner's circle - in hopes of getting somewhere he's not yet been: TOUR Championship.

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