McIlroy shares lead at Bay Hill

ORLANDO, Fla. — Bay Hill Club was bustling Thursday, bringing to mind what the PGA Tour was like before the COVID19 pandemic. The fans were limited in numbers, but they all wanted entertainment — and Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau each provided in his own way. First it was McIlroy, slowly feeling better about his game, and with good reason: Starting with a 55-foot putt on the par-3 second hole, the four-time major champion from Northern Ireland ran off five straight birdies for a share of the lead with Canada’s Corey Conners in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at 6-under-par 66. In the group behind McIlroy was American star DeChambeau, who this week has been contemplating a shot across the water to cut the 528-yard sixth hole down to size by going for the green. With a slight breeze into his face, this was not the day — so the reigning U.S. Open champion had some fun of a different sort. He took out an iron, then hit a conservative tee shot 309 yards to the middle of the fairway. It was a boring birdie, his third in a row, and he opened with a 67 to sit alone in third, one ahead of Jason Kokrak, South Korea’s Byeong Hun An and Colombia’s Sebastian Munoz. “There was a high expectation level of me trying to go for the green there, and it was a little pressure that I wasn’t expecting,” DeChambeau said. “But no, it was fun. The crowds were great with it. I pulled out an iron as a joke off the tee box. And for me, it was just too much off of the right and more into the wind than anything.” All three Baylor School graduates on the PGA Tour are in the field: Luke List was tied for 29th after a 71, and Harris English and Keith Mitchell were part of the group in 56th at 73.

BASKETBALL

› GREENVILLE, S.C. — Kentucky junior star Rhyne Howard scored 27 points, including seven in the last three minutes when the fifth-seeded Wildcats outscored 12th-seeded Florida 14-4 to win 73-64 on Thursday in the second round of the Southeastern Conference women’s basketball tournament. That ended an entertaining duel with Florida’s Kiki Smith, who scored a career-high 36 points, the ninth-highest game in tourney history. Howard, the Bradley Central High School graduate who earlier this week was named the SEC women’s basketball player of the year for the second straight season, shot 10-for-15 from the field and also had six rebounds, four assists, four steals and a block against the Gators (11-13). The 17th-ranked Wildcats (17-7) advanced to face fourth-seeded and 16th-ranked Georgia (18-5) in today’s quarterfinals. Smith, who surpassed 1,000 career points in a win against Auburn on Wednesday to open the tournament, also led the Gators in rebounds with nine. In other games Thursday: eighth-seeded LSU beat ninth-seeded Mississippi State 71-62, advancing to face top-seeded Texas A&M; seventh-seeded Alabama beat 10th-seeded Missouri 82-74, advancing to face second-seeded South Carolina; and 11th-seeded Ole Miss beat sixth-seeded Arkansas 69-60, advancing to face third-seeded Tennessee.

BASEBALL

› NORTH PORT. Fla. — Atlanta Braves pitcher Max Fried won’t make his first scheduled start of spring training because of a potential exposure to someone with COVID-19. Braves manager Brian Snitker said Thursday that Fried hasn’t tested positive for the virus, but the team is taking no chances. The left-hander had been scheduled to start today against the Minnesota Twins. “We’re laying him low for a couple of days,” Snitker said. A 17-game winner in 2019, Fried went 7-0 with a 2.25 ERA last season and finished fifth in the National League Cy Young Award balloting.

FOOTBALL

› PITTSBURGH — Ben Roethlisberger is returning for an 18th season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the 39-year-old quarterback is taking a pay cut to do it. The team and the two-time Super Bowl winner announced Thursday they have agreed on a new contract that assures he will be back in 2021. Financial details were not immediately available, though the Steelers have made no secret of the need for Roethlisberger to take a pay cut to ease some of the burden of his NFL-high $41.25-million salary cap hit scheduled for 2021. NFL Network, citing anonymous sources, said Roethlisberger’s new deal will essentially pay him $14 million this season and adds four voidable years to spread out the dead money.