Dad-to-be Malnati delivers big round at Houston Open
Peter Malnati, playing while awaiting a potential call to leave town for the birth of his first child, held the Houston Open lead when the second round was suspended due to darkness Friday in Humble, Texas.
Fifty-nine players have yet to complete the second round, which will resume Saturday morning.
Malnati shot a 7-under-par 65 at the Golf Club of Houston, leaving him at 10-under 134. First-round co-leader Talor Gooch is at 9 under through 14 holes of his second round.
Three players share third place at 8 under.
Malnati, 32, captured the 2016 Sanderson Farms Championship, but his attempt to earn another title could be derailed by weightier family matters. His wife, Alicia, who is in Knoxville, Tennessee., is due to deliver the child in two weeks, but Malnati is prepared in case the baby comes sooner.
“I’m fully on call,” Malnati said, according to GolfChannel.com. “I didn’t know if I was going to come play here or not. (Alicia is) always encouraging me to play and she has all the media officials’ phone numbers, so if someone has to come get me off the course this week, they will.”
Malnati said he told himself, “‘Dude, this is your last tournament before you become a dad, like do something with it.’”
ROUGH FINISH NEARLY COSTS BARRON >> Doug Barron lost his great start with three bogeys over his last four holes and had to settle for a 6-under 66, giving him a one-shot lead over Woody Austin after the opening round in the SAS Championship.
This is the last regular-season event on the PGA Tour Champions before the top 72 players advance to the Charles Schwab Cup playoffs.
Jerry Kelly, No. 2 in the Schwab Cup behind Scott McCarron, opened with a 68 along with Vijay Singh and Tim Petrovic.
NASCAR
HAMLIN TOPS 204 MPH AT TALLADEGA >> Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin posted the seventh-fastest lap of the season — behind six drivers at a July practice at Daytona — in the closing moments of the first drafting session at Talladega Superspeedway.
He was the only driver to top 204, clocking in at 204.904 mph, but Kevin Harvick was second fastest at 203.688 mph. Kyle Busch, who had an early fuel pressure issue at the start of practice, was third at 203.684 and seven drivers in total surpassed 203 mph.
Speeds like that typically cause jitters in NASCAR at its fastest and biggest track, where cars have been known to flip and Kyle Larson, the only driver locked into the third round of the playoffs, wound up upside down on his roof in the spring.
Hamlin downplayed any concerns headed into Sunday’s playoff race, saying “only insurance companies” worry about speeds over 200 mph — a mark surpassed by 33 of the 44 drivers in Friday’s first practice.
High schools
CALIFORNIA COACHING LEGEND DIES >> Mike Phelps, one of the winningest boys basketball coaches in California history, died at age 74 on Oct. 2.
Phelps began his career at St. Joseph’s in 1971 and took over at Bishop O’Dowd in 1979 before taking a leave of absence in 2003. Phelps won a California state championship in 1981 and tallied 24 league championships and 13 CIF North Coast Section titles.
After an O’Dowd win over Tennyson in 2003, Phelps became the winningest basketball coach in California history with 829 victories. He still stands at No. 5 on that list behind Mater Dei’s Gary McKnight, Damien’s Mike Leduc, Westchester’s Ed Azzam and St. Joseph’s Don Lippi.
“Pound-for-pound, the best basketball coach in the Bay Area’s history,” said his longtime rival Lippi. “He was fanatical about details and demanding perfection from his players.”
Gymnastics
NAGORNYY WINS WORLD TITLE >> Russia’s Nikita Nagornyy won his first individual world title by more than 1 1/2 points, a year after fellow Russian Artur Dalaloyan needed a tiebreaker to win. That puts Russia’s men on track for a strong showing at next year’s Olympics, after world team gold on Wednesday and a 1-2 finish in the allaround for Nagornyy and Dalaloyan two days later.
Nagornyy finished on 88.772 points, with 87.165 points for Dalaloyan. Bronze went to Oleg Verniaiev of Ukraine on 86.973.
Six-time United States all-around champion Sam Mikulak led the scoring after three rotations with highscoring routines on the parallel bars, but he later fell on the pommel horse and finished seventh.
Swimming
U.S. OLYMPIC CHAMPION DWYER RETIRES >> American double Olympic champion Conor Dwyer announced he is retiring from swimming on the day he was handed a 20-month doping ban that ruled him out of next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) earlier announced that an independent three-member panel of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) determined the suspension after Dwyer, 30, was found to have had testosterone pellets inserted in his body.
Track
OREGON PROJECT SHUT DOWN >> Nike is closing its elite Oregon Project track and field program overseen by Alberto Salazar following his recent four-year doping ban. But the sportswear giant and Salazar’s protégée, Galen Rupp, are backing the disgraced coach’s efforts to overturn the ban.
Salazar was found guilty last week by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency of running experiments with supplements and testosterone that were bankrolled and supported by Nike, along with possessing and trafficking testosterone.
Soccer
MCKENNIE GETS HAT TRICK IN 13 MINUTES >> Weston McKennie scored the quickest hat trick from the opening whistle in U.S. Men’s National Team history, helping the Americans cruise to a 7-0 victory over Cuba in their CONCACAF Nations League opener Friday night at Audi Field in Washington, D.C.
McKennie’s hat trick, complete by the 13th minute, was also the first of any sort by an American player in more than two years. The now-retired Clint Dempsey had the last, in a 6-0 World Cup qualifying victory over Honduras back in March 2017.
Stanford product Jordan Morris scored and became the third U.S. player to contribute three assists in a match, joining Landon Donovan and Cobi Jones. Two assists went to McKennie.
EURO QUALIFYING >> England conceded a late goal against the Czech Republic and paid the price with its first defeat in a qualifying game in 10 years, while France and Portugal made progress in securing their places at next year’s European Championship.
A goal five minutes from the end halted England’s unbeaten streak in qualifying for a major competition with the Czechs winning 2-1. A victory would have secured a spot for England at the finals with three games to go.
Andorra made history in Group H with a 1-0 win over Moldova. Andorra, with fewer than 80,000 residents nestled in the Pyrenees between Spain and France, had lost all 56 of its previous games in European qualifying.