Saunders has lead after opening 59

ATLANTIC BEACH, Fla. — Sam Saunders shot a 12-under-par 59 on his home course Thursday in the first round of the Web.com Tour Championship. Saunders birdied his final six holes at Atlantic Beach Country Club — the Jacksonville-area club where he became a member this year — for the seventh sub60 round in Web.com Tour history. With wife Kelly and 8-year-old son Cohen looking on, Saunders made an 18-foot birdie putt on the par-3 eighth and closed with a 10-footer on the par-4 ninth. “It was dead center. I saw it going in from a few feet out,” he said about the final putt, which wrapped up a round with 13 birdies and one bogey. Chattanooga’s Stephan Jaeger set the tour record of 58 last year in the Ellie Mae Classic at TPC Stonebrae in Hayward, Calif., and Notah Begay III, Doug Dunakey, Jason Gore, Russell Knox and Will Wilcox have also shot 59s in Web.com events. Saunders, a grandson of the late Arnold Palmer, is trying to regain his PGA Tour card via the fourevent Web.com Tour Finals after finishing 129th in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings this season, and he entered the week 24th in the race for 25 PGA Tour cards. Saunders was paired with fellow Atlantic Beach member Steve Wheatcroft — he was 23rd in the postseason pursuit — who had a 62 for a share of second place with Matt Atkins. Tyler Duncan and Ben Silverman were tied for fourth at 63, with former Baylor School golfer Keith Mitchell another stroke back. Jaeger (66) was tied for 22nd, former Dalton High School golfer Blake Adams (69) tied for 64th, Athens, Tenn., native

Eric Axley (70) tied for 78th and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga alum Jonathan Hodge (71) tied for 94th.

› JERSEY CITY, N.J. — The opening ceremony at the Presidents Cup was unlike any other in golf, with George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and

Barack Obama on the first tee Thursday. But the results were familiar. The Americans led at some point in all five of the foursomes matches at Liberty National Golf Club. They won the first three, and when they jumped on a ferry to take them across the New York Harbor to their Manhattan hotel, they had the lead. Behind a new tandem of Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas and an old one of Patrick Reed and

Jordan Spieth, the Americans jumped out to a 3 1/2-1 1/2 lead over the team made of international players (though none from Europe, which the United States faces in even-numbered years at the Ryder Cup). It was the sixth consecutive time the Americans led after the opening session in an event they haven’t lost in two decades. Thomas and Fowler lost only two holes in a 6-and-4 victory over Hideki Matsuyama and

Charl Schwartzel. Reed and Spieth improved to 6-1-2 as a tandem in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup after topping Emiliano Grillo and Si Woo Kim 5 and 4. But the biggest stars on this day didn’t hit a shot. The leader of every country where the Presidents Cup is held are invited to be honorary chairman, but this was a first — three U.S. presidents together at this event, sitting together in a box on the first tee and then posing with the trophy, the players and their wives. The competition continues today with five matches of fourballs, followed by a full day of foursomes and fourballs Saturday and the decisive Sunday singles.

BASKETBALL

› NEW YORK — NBA commissioner Adam Silver expects the league’s players to continue standing for the national anthem — not only because it’s a league rule, he said, but because they are aware of what it means in what Silver believes is a divided America. Silver said the playing of the national anthem has always been a time for respect and reflection — even in a league where 25 percent of the players are not American — and he recalled that many teams locked arms last season. He wants players to continue showing unity during the anthem but to do it while standing. Silver spoke after the NBA’s Board of Governors meetings, during which owners passed rules designed to prevent healthy players from sitting out games and to keep teams from losing games on purpose to improve their draft position. Under the new draft lottery rules, the teams with the three worst records will all have 14 percent odds to land the No. 1 pick when the changes are implemented with the 2019 draft. The team with the worst record previously had 25 percent odds to win the lottery and could fall to the No. 4 spot in the draft. Now that team can tumble all the way to fifth.

FOOTBALL

› FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Atlanta Falcons receiver Julio Jones was limited in practice Thursday, the second straight day a sore back has kept him from full participation. Jones was injured on the last offensive snap of Atlanta’s 30-26 victory at Detroit this past Sunday when Lions safety Glover Quin made a clean tackle. He said he told the team’s medical staff he was fine after the play, and he expects to be in uniform Sunday when Atlanta (3-0) hosts Buffalo (2-1). Right tackle Ryan Schraeder

and free safety Ricardo Allen

are still in the NFL concussion protocol and haven’t been cleared to practice. Defensive ends Vic Beasley (hamstring) and Courtney Upshaw (ankle) and running back Terron Ward

(neck, shoulder) were held out, too, while defensive tackle Jack Crawford (shoulder) was a limited participant.

› LAKE OZARK, Mo. — A Missouri bar owner is defending his use of two NFL jerseys as doormats outside his building’s front door. KOMU-TV reported the display outside the establishment originally showed Marshawn Lynch’s

Oakland Raiders jersey taped to the ground to the left of Colin Kaepernick’s San Francisco 49ers jersey. After someone who saw the display complained on the bar’s Facebook page that the arrangement of the names could be construed as a message calling for violence against Kaepernick, bar owner Jason Burle switched the jerseys’ placement, according to the report. Burle told the station he meant no personal harm by the display and said the jerseys were put there to protest NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, saying “It’s not a race thing.”