Big boys top Northern Trust leaderboard

Two swings cost Dustin Johnson the lead. It wasn’t long before Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler caught up to him in the Northern Trust, setting up a weekend of star power in the opening FedEx Cup playoff event in Old Westbury, N.Y.

Johnson, finally looking like the No. 1 player who looked unstoppable in the spring, appeared on the verge of building a big lead at Glen Oaks Club until consecutive tee shots wound up on the wrong holes and forced him to scramble just to escape with bogey.

Fowler made up a five-shot deficit in six holes playing alongside Johnson, making a 15-foot birdie on the last hole for a 66 to join Johnson and Jhonattan Vegas (65) atop the leaderboard.

And then Spieth put together a stretch of five straight birdies Friday afternoon reminiscent of his British Open victory in a 65.

Matt Kuchar (64) and Bubba Watson (68) were one shot out of the lead.

Jon Rahm, who played with Johnson and Fowler, had a 68 and was two shots behind along with Justin Rose (68) and Russell Henley (72).

Hideki Matsuyama was among those who missed the cut.

A federal judge in Los Angeles knocked out a class-action lawsuit that had been filed on behalf of fight fans and pay-per-view subscribers upset that boxer Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines wasn’t 100% healthy for his May 2015 fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas.

In dismissing a consolidated batch of lawsuits, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner said he has sympathy for fans around the country who felt deceived that Pacquiao didn’t disclose he had a shoulder injury until about three hours before the fight.

Mayweather won a 12-round decision in an event that drew record cable TV viewership and criticism that the matchup between two of the best fighters of a generation failed to live up to its billing. The judge ruled that fans still got what cable TV providers said viewers paid more than $400 million to see — a boxing match between Pacquiao and Mayweather.

“Plaintiffs had no legally protected interest or right to see an exciting fight, a fight between two totally healthy and fully prepared boxers, or a fight that lived up to the significant pre-fight hype,” Klausner wrote in his 11-page order.

Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney and the school agreed to an eight-year, $54-million contract that averages out to $6.75 million a year. It includes $3.2 million in signing bonuses in three installments. The deal makes Swinney the third highestpaid football coach in the country, behind only Alabama’s Nick Saban and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh.