Scheffler, 7 others share Colonial lead
Scottie Scheffler did something last weekend that he rarely does, watching a golf tournament at home after missing a cut. The world's No. 1 player is back on the course, and tied atop a crowded leaderboard at Colonial.
Scheffler was among eight players who shot 4-under 66 on Thursday in the Charles Schwab Classic at Fort Worth, Texas. But he was the only in that group without a bogey, rebounding from his missed cut at the PGA Championship.
Cam Davis, Beau Hossler, Chris Kirk, Patrick Reed, Webb Simpson, Nick Taylor and Harold Varner III also shot 66s. Seven others were a shot back.
“The course is playing harder than it does in a typical year here. Yeah, I felt like I did a really good job of managing myself around the golf course,” Scheffler said. “Anytime you make no bogeys, it’s going to be a good round.”
Defending Colonial champion Jason Kokrak and Jordan Spieth, the 2016 winner who last year became a third-time runnerup, shot 69.
Scheffler played Thursday with PGA Championship winner
Justin Thomas, the world’s No. 5 player, who had a 71.
Elsewhere: Something in southwest Michigan agrees with
Chris DiMarco’s golf game. As a 19-year-old playing for the Florida Gators, DiMarco won the prestigious 1988 Western Amateur at Point O’Woods Golf & Country Club in Millburg. On Thursday, the 53-year-old was one of five golfers who shot an opening 4-under 67 at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor, Michigan. American Gene Sauers, Australia’s Mark Hensby, Sweden’s Joakim
Haeggman and France’s Thomas Levet also had 4-under 67s at the par-71, 6,734-yard Jack Nicklaus-designed course that’s hosting its fifth Senior PGA Championship since it opened in 2010. ... Joost Luiten made an impressive start to his bid for a third victory at the Dutch Open at Cromvert, Netherlands. Luiten had eight birdies and one bogey in a first-round 7-under 65 in front of a home crowd at the European tour event at Bernardus Golf. That gave the No. 401 a one-shot lead over England’s Eddie Pepperell and Denmark’s Rasmus Hojgaard.
N.C. STATE TRIPS UP UM AT ACC BASEBALL TOURNEY
Freshman Tommy White hit three home runs — the last of which broke N.C. State’s program record — and the Wolfpack beat sixth-ranked Miami 9-6 late Wednesday night at Charlotte, North Carolina, to advance to the semifinals of the ACC Tournament.
Miami starter Carson Palmquist (9-4), who had allowed just five earned runs in 29 1⁄3 innings over his previous five starts, allowed six hits and six runs — five earned — with four walks and three strikeouts over 3 2⁄3 innings.
Gaby Gutierrez and Dominic Pitelli opened the third inning with back-to-back walks, CJ Kayfus followed with a single to center that scored Gutierrez and Yohandy Morales crushed a three-run homer to give the No. 3-seed Hurricanes (39-17) a 4-1 lead.
ETC.
Gymnastics:A former member of the Canadian national gymnastics team wrote a public letter accusing the country’s 2016 Olympic coach of inappropriate and unwanted touching.
The letter by Abby Pearson Spadafora, 38, revealed the latest in a long series of allegations of sexual, emotional and physical abuse by coaches Dave and Elizabeth Brubaker, who have been banned by Gymnastics Canada. Spadafora accused the coach of climbing into bed with her and of reaching his hand underneath her shirt.
“The abuse never stopped,” Spadafora wrote in her letter released Thursday.
“My male coach would regularly snap the back of my sports bras when I started wearing them. I was taught that gaining weight and puberty were a bad thing. Injuries were rarely taken seriously, and I was taught to hide the pain.” Spadafora said she started training 25 to 35 hours a week at age 7, and was weighed twice a day.
Cycling: Belgian rider Dries De Bondt won a four-man sprint to take the last flat stage of a Giro d’Italia at Treviso, Italy, that looks like it will be decided on the last day Sunday.
Richard Carapaz, the 2019 champion and Tokyo Olympics gold medalist, maintained a three-second lead in the overall standings from Australia’s Jai Hindley, who was runner-up in 2020.