‘Match’ big win for golf, charity
Tom Brady delivered the shot of the match that made it easy to forget the rest of his swings. Tiger Woods didn’t miss a fairway and earned a small measure of revenge against Phil Mickelson. The PGA Tour is set to return in just more than two weeks, and it has a tough act to follow. In a charity match that brought live golf to TV for the second straight weekend, Sunday’s exhibition was as entertaining as the real thing. Woods lagged a long birdie putt close enough that his partner, Peyton Manning, didn’t have to putt. That secured a 1-up victory over Mickelson and Brady in “The Match: Champions for Charity.” The goal was to raise $10 million or more for COVID19 relief funds, and online donations sent money climbing toward twice that much. This made-for-TV exhibition would have have been worth pay-per-view, the model Mickelson and Woods used for a $9 million winner-take-all match in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving weekend in 2018 that Mickelson won in a playoff under lights. That event felt forced, lacked banter and turned out to be free for all to see because of technical trouble. Throw in two NFL greats in Brady and Manning, and this allowed viewers to ride along for 18 holes at Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida, among four of the biggest stars in sports. Woods and Manning took the lead on the third hole and never trailed, building a 3-up lead in fourballs on the front nine, with Manning making two
birdies (one was a net par). The back nine was modified alternate shot — all players hit tee shots, and it was alternate shot from there. It was key for the quarterbacks to find the fairway for the pros to hit shots into the green, and Brady — whose sweet fourth shot on the par-5 seventh landed beyond the pin and spun back into the cup — came through until the 18th.
AUTO RACING
› CONCORD, N.C. — Kurt Busch won the pole position for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the only event on what is usually the biggest and busiest single day of auto racing on the calendar. The Sunday before Memorial Day is supposed to be a smorgasbord of motorsports that begins with Formula One at the Monaco Grand Prix, then IndyCar and the Indianapolis 500, followed by NASCAR and its longest race on the schedule. The coronavirus pandemic has wiped out the first part of F1’s schedule, though, and that international circuit and IndyCar are still waiting to start their seasons. As for NASCAR, it held three races last week at South Carolina’s Darlington Raceway to end a 10-week layof, and the Coca-Cola 600 kicked off four consecutive days of racing at CMS. Busch ran a lap at 181.269 mph during Sunday afternoon’s qualifying session to earn his first pole of the season. The evening race started as scheduled, but a rain delay sent the cars into the pits after 49 laps and the race was not complete at press time. For coverage, please visit timesfreepress.com.
BASKETBALL
› Eddie Sutton waited so long to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He couldn’t hang on long enough to make it to the ceremony. The man who guided three trips to the Final Four and was the first coach to take four programs to the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament died Saturday. He was 84. Sutton’s family released a statement saying he died of natural causes at home near Tulsa, Oklahoma, surrounded by his three sons and their families. His wife, Patsy, died in 2013. Elected to the Hall of Fame on April 3, Sutton fell short as a finalist six times before finally being selected. He had said he believed that a scandal that ended his stint at Kentucky was likely the culprit for his lengthy wait. The NCAA announced 18 allegations against the program in 1988, and he resigned in 1989. He certainly had a worthy résumé. He was 806-328 in 37 seasons as a Division I head coach — not counting vacated victories or forfeited games — and took Arkansas, Creighton, Kentucky and Oklahoma State to a combined 25 NCAA tournaments, leading Final Four squads at Arkansas in 1978 and Oklahoma State in 1995 and 2004. He was named AP coach of the year in 1978 while with the Razorbacks, and again in 1986 at Kentucky.