PEBBLE BEACH LOSES TOP-RANKED JOHNSON
Fresh off his victory in Saudi Arabia, Dustin Johnson decided Tuesday to withdraw from the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, leaving the tournament without a player from the top 10 in the world ranking.
Johnson is a two-time winner at Pebble Beach. He typically plays with his de facto father-in-law, hockey great Wayne Gretzky, except that amateurs are not in the field this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Johnson has played the Saudi International and Pebble Beach in consecutive weeks each of the last two years, and this was the second time he has won in Saudi Arabia.
His manager, David Winkle at Hambric Sports Management, said the world's No. 1 player decided he would be better off enjoying a week at home before going to Los Angeles for the Genesis Invitational at Riviera. The following week, he is scheduled to play a World Golf Championships event on Florida's Gulf Coast.
Patrick Cantlay at No. 11 is the highest-ranked player at Pebble Beach, which is likely to have its weakest field since the world ranking began in 1986.
More golf
The LPGA announced on Twitter that Annika Sorenstam, 50, has committed to play the Gainbridge LPGA in Orlando, Fla., scheduled for Feb. 25-28 on her home course of Lake Nona.
It will be her first official event since she missed the cut in the season-ending ADT Championship at Trump International in 2008, her final season of a Hall of Fame career that included 72 wins on the LPGA Tour and 10 majors.
Skiing
Two-time Olympic champion Ted Ligety, 36, plans to retire from World Cup ski racing after the world championships.
Ligety's final race will be the giant slalom on Feb. 19 in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
Known for his smooth, technical racing, Ligety won a surprise gold medal in the combined at the 2006 Turin Olympics and another gold medal eight years later in the giant slalom at the Sochi Games as the favorite.
His storied career also includes five wins at world championships, 25 World Cup victories and five season-long World Cup giant slalom titles. Ligety's dominance in the giant slalom once led Austrian skiing great Marcel Hirscher to pronounce him “Mr. GS.”
Soccer
The U.S. men's soccer team will play 45th-ranked Northern Ireland in an exhibition
at Belfast's Windsor Park on March 28 in the second of two matches planned for the FIFA fixture window.
The U.S. Soccer Federation also is planning to play a friendly in Europe on March 25.
• The U.S. Open Cup, which begins May 4, is being cut from 101 teams to 24 and reduced from eight rounds to five because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Also
Del Mar announced its 2021 summer meeting will begin July 17 and conclude Sept. 6, with the $750,000 Pacific Classic scheduled for Aug. 21. The fall meeting will run from Nov. 3-28, highlighted by the Breeders' Cup on Nov. 5-6.
• Playing in its first ever tournament as an NCAA Division I squad, the UCSD men's golf team placed seventh
at the Orange County Collegiate Classic on Coto de Caza's South Course.
• Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia set the 1,500 meters indoor world record by finishing in 3 minutes 53.09 seconds at a meet in northern France.
• USA Hockey's twin-sister tandem, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando, is retiring after 14 years of international competition.
• Atlanta Dream guard Renee Montgomery is retiring following an 11-year career with four teams that included two WNBA championships.
• Timberwolves guard Malik Beasley was sentenced to 120 days in jail after pleading guilty to a felony charge of threats of violence for pointing a rifle at a family outside his home last fall.