MAJOR WINNER, SENIOR TOUR STAR DIES AT 93
Don January, who won the 1967 PGA Championship and became one of the early stars on golf ’s Senior Tour, winning 22 events in its first decade, died Sunday at his home in Dallas. He was 93.
His death was announced by the PGA Tour.
“I’m just a damned old pro from Dallas, Texas, who was lucky enough to have a swing that lasted for a while,” January told Sports Illus- trated in 1998, the year before he retired.
January, who turned pro in 1955, won 10 PGA Tour events in 10 different years, most notably the 1967 PGA Championship, when he defeated fellow Texan Don Massengale by two strokes in a playoff at the Columbine Country Club near Denver. Six years earlier, he was beaten by Jerry Barber ina PGA Championship playoff.
January, at 46, won the Vardon Trophy for the PGA Tour’s lowest scoring average, 70.56, in 1976, the same year he captured the Tournament of Champions. He played on victorious Ryder Cup teams in 1965 and 1977.
In January 1980, January met with his fellow pros Gardner Dickinson, Sam Snead, Bob Goalby, Dan Sikes and Julius Boros to help lay the groundwork for the PGA Tour to create a Senior Tour.
As January remembered it, his small group of pros “decided there might be a market for a modest tour,” though “we had no idea it would grow the way it did.”
January won the Senior Tour’s first event, the Atlantic City Seniors, which attracted 50 pro golfers and 12 amateurs age 50 or older. He earned only $20,000 (the equivalent of about $73,000 today) for capturing the June 1980 tournament, but senior events, now part of the Champions Tour, have proved a lucrative showcase for many of the game’s leading players over 50.
January won the tour’s PGA Seniors’ Championship in 1982, and three years later he became the first player with $1 million in winnings as a senior (about $2.8 million in today’s money). He gained his 22nd and final senior victory in 1987.
Death
Nicolas “Nick” Gilbert, the son of Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert who became the team’s good luck charm at NBA Draft lotteries, died. He was 26. A funeral announcement posted by the Ira Kaufman Chapel said Gilbert died Saturday “peacefully at home surrounded by family.” Gilbert was diagnosed as a child with neurofibromatosis (NF1).
Tennis
Carlos Alcaraz successfully defended his Madrid Open title with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win over lucky loser JanLennard Struff, moving closer to recovering his world No. 1 ranking. The 20year-old Spaniard will be back at the top of the rankings going into the French Open if he plays at least one match at the upcoming Italian Open in Rome.
Locally
Tumi Moshobane and Joe Corona scored for San Diego Loyal SC (5-2-2 USL Championship) in a 2-1 win against host Orange County SC on Saturday night at
Championship Soccer Stadium in Irvine. It was the Loyal’s first road win of the season. The club returns home for its next match, hosting Rio Grande Valley FC on Saturday.
Soccer
Dusan Vlahovic responded to opposition fans’ discriminatory chants with a late goal to help Juventus beat Atalanta 2-0 and move into second spot in Serie A.
• David De Gea’s error in Manchester United’s 1-0 loss to West Ham loosened his team’s grip on the final Champions League qualification place. The Spain goalkeeper let Said Benrahma’s hopeful shot from 20 meters slip over his glove and into the net to condemn
Erik ten Hag’s team to backto-back defeats in the Premier League, after a 1-0 loss at Brighton on Thursday.
• Arsenal kept the pressure on Manchester City in the Premier League title race by beating Newcastle 2-0 in a huge test of its character and credentials. Martin Odegaard’s first-half strike and Fabian Schar’s own-goal, combined with some breathtaking saves by
Aaron Ramsdale, saw Arsenal
come through the toughest of its final four games with a rare win for a visiting team at St. James’ Park.
Mixed martial arts
Aljamain Sterling survived a late takedown that sent a packed crowd into a frenzy and held on to his 135pound championship with a split decision victory against Henry Cejudo in the main event of UFC 288 at Newark, N.J., on Saturday night.
The 33-year-old Sterling won his ninth straight fight and spoiled Cejudo’s comeback after a three-year retirement. Sterling was immediately confronted inside the cage by challenger Sean O’Malley and the two fighters instantly needed to be separated.
Also
Twins Audrey and Nicole Nourse of USC beat the Bruins’ Haley Hallgren and Rileigh Powers 21-18, 19-21, 15-9 to give the Trojans a 3-2 win over top-ranked and No. 1 seed UCLA to lift USC to its third consecutive NCAA beach volleyball championship at Gulf Shores, Ala.