The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Clark gets win as weather washes out final round at Pebble Beach
Wyndham Clark noticed the cameras starting to show up on the 12th hole, the sure sign he was making a charge. He felt the buzz of being in contention and the affection from the gallery when he walked off the 18th green at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am.
“It really felt like I had just won the tournament,” Clark said.
And he did on Sunday. It’s just that his record score and all those emotions happened on Saturday.
Clark was declared the 54-hole winner at the first full signature event of the PGA Tour season when rain and dangerous wind postponed the final round on Sunday, and then tour and Monterey County officials decided it was too dangerous to play on Monday.
Clark won for the third time in nine months, all of them big titles — a $20 million elevated event at the Wells Fargo Championship, his first major at the U.S. Open in June, and then the $20 million signature event at Pebble Beach.
And he did it in style. He broke the Pebble Beach record with a 60 on Saturday — missing an eagle putt from 25 feet on the final hole — and left the course with a one-shot lead over Ludvig Aberg of Sweden. That tap-in for birdie turned out to be the winning putt.
Clark was declared the 54-hole winner, not unusual for Pebble Beach. The course was soaked by overnight rain, a small problem. And then the wind arrived, a big problem. It packed gusts of 60 mph and toppled portable toilets, signage, fences and even a camera used to measure Shotlink Data. The final round was postponed until Monday.
And then on Sunday evening — by then Clark had gone for a walk, made breakfast, watched a movie and was sweating from playing table tennis with his high school English teacher — the final round was canceled.
Nasty weather was forecast into Monday morning, but Monterey County had urged residents to stay home, motorists were advised not to travel the highways until Monday night and tour and county officials thought it was prudent and safe not to proceed.
“It’s maybe not the way you dream of winning,” Clark said in a conference call Sunday night. “With that said, a lot of us yesterday had ... not that we knew, but we definitely had this outside shot and thinking
that maybe this is our last round.”
Clark was six shots behind going into Saturday and said he was aiming for a top 10. He had a real chance at 59 and had to settle for a 60 to reach 19-under 199, and that was enough.
“Everyone wants to win a tournament in 72 holes and sleep on a lead and perform on a Sunday and come down the stretch and embrace your caddie on 18 and do all of that,” Clark said. “So with that said, Saturday was so unique.”
• Joaquin Niemann outlasted Sergio Garcia well after sunset Sunday in the season-opening LIV Golf Mayakoba, making a 12foot birdie putt from the fringe on the fourth hole of a playoff with the green lit by a large video screen at Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Niemann won his first LIV Golf title two days after opening with a 12-under 59 — and after having two penalty strokes tacked onto his second-round score Sunday morning for taking incorrect relief on a drop from a cart path on the 13th hole.
BASEBALL Dodgers make moves to set spring roster
The Dodgers made a pair of moves to set their bullpen before the opening of spring training later this week.
Free-agent right-hander Ryan Brasier reportedly agreed to a two-year deal to return to the Dodgers. The contract will pay him $9 million with incentives that could add to that. The move is not official until the Dodgers clear a spot on their 40-man roster.
Additionally, the Dodgers traded left-hander Caleb Ferguson to the New York Yankees in exchange for two pitchers – lefthander Matt Gage and 19-year-old right-hander Christian Zazueta Jr.
Brasier, 36, was a key piece of the Dodgers’ 2023 bullpen with a 0.70 ERA,
38 strikeouts and only 18 hits in 38 2/3 innings.
Gage, 30, has pitched in five organizations, the Mexican League and independent baseball. He had a 1.83 ERA in 16 big-league games for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2022 and the Houston Astros last season. He was claimed on waivers by the Yankees last month.
Swapping Ferguson for Gage gives the Dodgers some roster flexibility. Ferguson is out of options. Gage can be optioned throughout the season.
Zazueta has spent the past two seasons playing for the Yankees team in the Dominican Summer League, going 3-5 with a 4.54 ERA. His father has played in the Mexican League for the past 19 seasons, primarily as an outfielder, collecting over 1900 hits.
Pitchers and catchers report to Camelback Ranch on Thursday with the first spring training workout scheduled for Friday.
- Bill Plunkett
• Kansas City agreed with shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. on an 11-year deal worth more than $288.7 million guaranteed, two people familiar with the contract told The Associated Press on Monday, locking up one of baseball’s young stars as the club tries to turn around its fortunes and persuade a weary fanbase to invest in a new stadium.
Washington set to hire Belichick's son
Steve Belichick, son of NFL coaching great Bill Belichick, has agreed to be the defensive coordinator for new coach Jedd Fisch at Washington, a person with knowledge of the move told The Associated Press on Monday. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made.
Belichick, 36, the defensive play caller for the Patriots for the past five seasons, will reunite with Fisch, who served as the quarterbacks coach with New England during the 2020 season.
All-star showcase to be held on glass court
For the first time, the NBA will play on glass.
Part of All-star weekend in Indianapolis — including the entire All-star Saturday Night lineup — will be played on a stateof-the-art, full video LED court that will be installed at Lucas Oil Stadium, the league said.
That means the skills competition, the 3-point contest, the slam dunk competition and the shooting matchup between Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu will take place on the glass floor on Feb. 17, as will the celebrity game on Feb. 16. The actual All-star Game itself on Feb. 18 will remain on a wooden court.
“It gives us a little bit more range in what we can do as far as interactive graphics, reactionary graphics that happen on the floor, changing the floor design, changing the colors, really reacting to the play that happens on the court,” said Carlton Myers, an NBA senior vice president overseeing live production and entertainment. “So, we feel really, really good about the capabilities of what this gives us, what this provides us. And we think it’s going to be really impactful, both in the building and watching on television.”
The court is actually two layers of laminated safety glass, each five millimeters thick, the NBA said. The surface is opaque, and all the designs will be provided by the LED panels.
• Former WNBA MVP and eight-time All-star Nneka Ogwumike signed with the Seattle Storm on Monday, the second big splash in free agency for the franchise.
Ogwumike, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 draft, was the 2016 league MVP and spent the first 12 seasons of her WNBA career playing for the Sparks. Ogwumike announced last month she would not be returning to the Sparks and ended up signing with one of their Western Conference rivals.
• Joel Embiid, the NBA’S reigning MVP. will be out indefinitely and is set for surgery this week to on his left knee. The Philadelphia 76ers expect to have a clear idea on their 7-foot center’s recovery timetable after the surgery. Philadelphhia is 4-10 this season without Embiid entering Monday’s game against Dallas.