Off the wire
GOLF
Tiger to design course Tiger Woods said Tuesday he plans to design an 18- hole golf course in Hollister, Mo., about four miles south of Branson. Woods made the announcement with Johnny Morris, founder and CEO of Bass Pro Shops. Woods said the new course will be called Payne’s Valley to honor Springfield, Mo., native Payne Stewart, who won 11 PGA events before dying in an airplane crash in 1999. The course will be on the site of the former Murder Rock Golf Course, which was originally designed by John Daly ( Dardanelle, Arkansas Razorbacks). It opened in 2006 and closed when Morris bought the land in October 2013. It is scheduled to open in 2019. Woods said he became involved in the project because of his friendship with Morris and to honor Stewart. The two golfers played together on the Ryder Cup team in 1999.
FOOTBALL
NFL schedule The NFL will release its 2017 regular- season schedule Thursday night. The announcement will come on the NFL Network beginning at 7 p. m. Central. Super Bowl champion New England will host the kickoff game on Thursday, Sept. 7, possibly in a rematch of the title game with Atlanta. The Patriots’ other home games are against division rivals Miami, Buffalo and the New York Jets, and Kansas City, San Diego, Carolina and Houston. The season will end Dec. 31.
Stadium delayed Construction issues with MercedesBenz Stadium will delay the opening of the Atlanta Falcons’ new home for the third time and will keep the Georgia Dome standing for a while longer. Steve Cannon, CEO of Falcons parent company AMB Group, said Tuesday that the opening of the $ 1.5 billion downtown stadium will be pushed back from July 30, when an Atlanta United soccer match was to have been played there, to Aug. 26, when a Falcons preseason game is scheduled to be played there. Cannon also said demolition of the Georgia Dome has been put
on hold “until we are 100 percent certain of achieving our certificate of occupancy” required for holding events in the new stadium. The Dome’s replacement was originally scheduled to open March 1. That previously was pushed back to June 1 and then to July 30, both times because of issues associated with the complicated retractable roof. The roof — the first of its kind — consists of eight operable petals, each installed in four pieces. It is designed to open or close in about eight minutes with what architects have described as a “camera lens- like” effect. A 58- foot- tall, halo- shaped video board is to hang from the circumference of the roof opening, encircling the field.
Court: No harm
A state appeals court won’t revive a lawsuit by two former athletes who say they were harmed by sham classes at the University of North Carolina. The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a Charlotte- area judge properly dismissed their case last year. James Arnold and Leah Metcalf are ex- members of the North Carolina football and women’s basketball teams who argued the courses have hurt their career prospects. Appeals court judges wrote they hadn’t sufficiently shown that. Their lawsuit stemmed from an academic scandal over classes in North Carolina’s African and Afro- American Studies department. Metcalf and Arnold say they were steered to courses that lacked class meetings and supervision. A spokesman said the university applauds the ruling. The athletes’ lawyer Cyrus Mehri said they disagree with the ruling and are reviewing options.
MOTOR SPORTS
Veach to debut
Zach Veach will make his IndyCar debut this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Ala. Ed Carpenter Racing announced Tuesday that Veach will fill in for
JR Hildebrand, who broke his left hand on the last lap April 9 at Long Beach. Hildebrand had surgery two days later. Veach, 22, was set to make his debut at the Indianapolis 500 next month with A. J. Foyt Racing. He has six victories and six poles in three Indy Lights seasons. Veach will drive Hildebrand’s No. 21 Chevrolet in Sunday’s Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. Veach said he’s grateful for the opportunity but “this isn’t how any driver wants to get his first race.”
SOCCER
’ 87 winner decided After 30 years, Brazil’s Supreme Court finally decided on Tuesday the winner of the 1987 league title. It’s Sport Recife, a team that more often fights against relegation than for titles. The northeastern club beat Rio de Janeiro giants Flamengo 3- 1 in the ruling by a five- member panel. One member of the panel abstained because his son had worked as a Flamengo attorney in the case. The long- running dispute began when Flamengo won the title in a league created by the clubs involved. However, Brazil’s football confederation decided to organize a separate competition, which was won by Sport. The confederation then tried to get Flamengo to play Sport in a final, an offer that the Rio giants rejected. Had the panel failed to decide, the case would have gone to the full 11- member Supreme Court. “Football is passion, but the ideal is that sporting decisions do not come to court,” Justice Rosa Maria Weber said.