Schauffele rallies for share of Tour lead
Xander Schauffele was six shots behind before he ever hit a shot Thursday in the new scoring format for the PGA’s Tour Championship. His goal was to keep his head down, play good golf and see where he stood to par at the end of two days.
The TV cameras following his every move on the back nine at East Lake were the first hint it was going well. A leaderboard on the 18th green confirmed it.
“I saw I was in first,” he said. “Happy with the day.”
Schauffele didn’t come seriously close to a bogey in a 6-under 64 that was the best score of the opening round by two shots. It was only worth a share of the lead with Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka in an event in which players started with better scores to par than others depending on their place in the FedEx Cup.
Thomas, who started at 10-under par and a two-shot lead as the No. 1 seed, still led despite having trouble finding the fairway. That was the least of his problems on the back nine, finishing with a 70.
Instead of being six shots behind Schauffele, who started at 4 under as the No. 8 seed, Thomas was tied for the lead. Koepka, the No. 3 seed who started three shots behind, birdied three of his last four holes for a 67 to join them at 10 under.
“It’s weird on Thursday to be three back after a couple of holes,” Koepka said of the start. “It’s nice to close that gap on Day 1.”
• Annie Park shot a 7-under 65 to take a one-stroke lead in the opening round of the LPGA’s CP Women’s Open in Aurora, Ontario.
Brooke Henderson, the defending champ, and Anne- Catherine Tanguay were one shot back along with top-ranked Jin Young Ko, Pajaree Anannarukarn and Nicole Broch Larsen.
Park could play her way onto the U.S. team for next week’s Solheim Cup with a strong finish. The top eight players in the points standings after the tournament will make the team, with two additional spots determined by the world rankings and captain Juli Inkster’s two wild-card picks.
Tennis
U.S. OPEN DRAW SET » Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova will finally meet in the U.S. Open.
Williams and Sharapova, past champions and two of the biggest stars in women’s tennis, were scheduled for an opening-round matchup when the draws were conducted for the final major of the year.
Williams and Sharapova have met in the finals of the other three majors and the 2012 Olympics but have never played each other in the U.S. Open. Williams owns a 19-2 record in their WTA Tour matchups and has won 18 in a row..
Novak Djokovic was seeded No. 1 in the men’s draw, followed by Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
The U.S. Open begins Monday.
Soccer
QUAKES ROCKED » The Earthquakes’ momentum from a breakthrough July continued to dissipate in a 4- 0 loss to Los Angeles FC late Wednesday.
San Jose (11-10-5, 38 points) lost its third straight match and is winless over its past four contests, while LAFC (19- 3- 4, 61 points) won its fifth straight match.
LAFC’s Carlos Vela scored twice to raise his league-leading season goal total to 26, tied for fifth most in MLS history. The star striker needs just five over the final eight regular-season games to match the MLS single-season mark of 31 set last season by Atlanta United star Josef Martinez.
Quakes coach Matias Almeyda was ejected in the 39th minute for arguing the non-call of an apparent hand ball against LAFC.
Basketball
HUGE CROWD SEES U. S. TOP AUSTRALIA » Kemba Walker scored a game-high 23 points, and Myles Turner racked up 15 points and 14 rebounds in just 19 minutes as Team USA beat Australia 102-86 in Melbourne in a warm-up game for the FIBA World Cup.
The crowd of 51,218 was reported to be the largest ever for a basketball game in Australia. The venue, Marvel Stadium, typically hosts soccer, cricket and Australian rules football, but set up the stadium for basketball, with a closed roof.
Saint Mary’s product Patty Mills and Chris Goulding each had 19 points to lead Australia.
• President Donald Trump presented 91-year-old basketball legend Bob Cousy with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, praising the ex- Celtics star as “one of the alltime greats in the history of sports.”
Cousy played for the Celtics from 1950 to 1963, winning six league championships and the 1957 MVP title. The Bob Cousy Award, given to the country’s best point guard in men’s college basketball, is named for him. He is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and played a pivotal role in founding the NBA Player’s Association.
• Indiana coach Archie Miller hired ex-Hoosiers player Mike Roberts as an assistant coach. Roberts coached previously at UNC Greensboro, Rice and Cal, filling the void left by Ed Schilling’s departure.
Motorsports
JUNIOR STILL PLANS TO RACE » Dale Earnhardt Jr. plans to be back on the track next weekend in the NASCAR Xfinity race as planned, despite being involved in a plane crash last week.
Earnhardt, 44, is still recovering after last Thursday’s accident, in which the small plane the family was riding in bounced upon landing. Earnhardt, his wife and daughter avoided serious injury.
“Yes. I plan on driving still,” Earnhardt said via Twitter. “My lower back is bruised up real bad. Lots of swelling and I just need that to go down and the pain to chill out. I been treating the area every day solely to get well to race. I have a plan B but hope not to use it.”
Earnhardt retired from full-time driving in 2017 and joined NBC Sports as an analyst.