Swafford nabs 2nd career win
Hudson Swafford stopped his slidewith a 10-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole, and he finished with an 8-foot par putt to hold on for a one-shot victory Sunday in the Corales Puntacana Club and Resort Championship in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
Swafford closed with a 3-under 69, doing most of his work on the front nine with a 31 that took him from a two-shot deficit to a three-shot lead.
He led by four shots with six holes to play when he made double bogey on the 13th and bogey from the fairway on the 15th, falling into a share of the lead with Mackenzie Hughes and TylerMcCumber.
Swafford hit 6-iron to a front pin on the 210-yard 17th hole, with the wind coming off the Caribbean Sea on the right. It landed 10 feet to the left and he pumped his fist when he saw the putt drop for his first birdie since the eighth hole.
That gave him a one-shot lead overMcCumber, who had rolled in a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th for a 66. Ahead of him was Hughes, who made bogey from short of the 18th green for a 70 to fall two shots behind.
Swafford was on the front portion of the green and left his 40-foot putt up the ridge 8 feet short. He made that to avoid a playoff, finishing at 18-under 270.
Swafford’s second PGA Tour victory — the other was the Desert Classic in 2017 — gets him into the Masters next April. He hasn’t played in amajor in more than three years.
Auto racing: Valtteri Bottaswonthe Russian Grand Prix in Sochi after his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton’s race was ruined by penalties. Hamilton had been looking to match Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 wins in F1 but had to settle for third behind Bottas and Max Verstappen. Bottas built a sizeable lead over Verstappen with ease and cruised to his first win since the seasonopeningAustrianGrand Prix. Hamilton was already under investigation by the stewards when he started the race from pole. Before the race he twice stopped to perform practice starts at the exit of the pit lane, rather than in the designated area. That eventually earned him two fivesecond penalties. Hamilton’s championship leadover Bottaswas cut to a still-healthy 44 points with seven scheduled races remaining.
College football: No. 6 Ohio State, No. 10 Penn State and No. 14 Oregon returned toTheAPTop25. At the top of the rankings this week, Clemson remained No. 1 with 55 first-place votes, followed by Alabama at No. 2 with three first-place votes.
Soccer: Luis Suarez scored two goals and added an assist in his debut for Atletico Madrid, leading the La Liga club to a 6-1 rout of Granda just four days after his arrival from Barcelona. ... LionelMessia scored to help Barca top Villarreal 4-0 in Ronald Koeman’s debut as coach of the Spanish power. ... Hoffenheim endedBayernMunich’s 32-game run without defeat with a 4-1 win in the Bundesliga.