Morikawa has strong start at Workday Charity Open

Collin Morikawa didn’t get rattled by his first missed cut as a pro or his first time playing Muirfield Village.

Morikawa, the former Cal golfer, finally had a forced weekend off two weeks ago after 22 consecutive cuts to start his PGA Tour career, three short of the standard set by Tiger Woods. He bounced back Thursday in the Workday Charity Open in Dublin, Ohio, with a 7-under 65 for a one-shot lead over Adam Hadwin.

Morikawa was dialed in from the start of a relatively calm and steamy afternoon on the course Jack Nicklaus built. His shot into the par-5 fifth settled 3 feet away for eagle. All but one of his birdie putts was inside 12 feet. The only setback was a bogey from the fairway on the 18th.

He liked it so much that Morikawa is even more excited about spending two weeks at Muirfield Village.

For the first time in 63 years, the PGA Tour will have tournaments on the same course in consecutive weeks. The Workday Charity Open fills a void this year for the John Deere Classic, which decided to cancel.

Most of the good scoring came in the morning. Hadwin had five birdies over his last eight holes for a 66. Nick Taylor, a new father who chose to stay home in Canada for an extra month after the tour resumed, had an eagle at No. 11 and kept bogeys off his card for a 67. He was joined by past Muirfield Village winner Hideki Matsuyama. TIGER WILL RETURN FOR MEMORIAL NEXT WEEK >> Tiger Woods announced on Twitter he will play next week at the Memorial, a tournament he has won a record five times, as he goes after his record 83rd career victory on the PGA Tour.

It will end a five-month break from competition for Woods. He last played on Feb. 16 at the Genesis Invitational, where he shot 7677 at chilly Riviera in Los Angeles to finish alone in last place.

EUROPEAN TOUR RESUMES AS LUITEN LEADS AT AUSTRIAN OPEN >> The European Tour restarted after a four-month break because of the coronavirus outbreak with the first round of the Austrian Open, where former winner Joost Luiten shot a 7-under 65 to take a one-stroke lead in Atzenbrugg.

Luiten won the event in 2013 and hasn’t finished outside of the top 10 in his last four starts at the Diamond Country Club outside Vienna.

Scottish players Marc Warren and Craig Howie were tied for second after shooting 66s.

NBA

PRACTICES BEGIN AT DISNEY, AS TEAMS BEGIN RESTART ROUTINES >> After four months, basketball was truly back.

Full-scale practices inside the NBA bubble at the Disney complex near Orlando, Florida, started, with the Magic — the first team to get into the campus earlier this week — becoming the first team formally back on the floor. By the close of business Thursday, all 22 teams participating in the restart were to be checked into their hotel and beginning their isolation from the rest of the world for what will be several weeks at least. And by Saturday, all teams should have practiced at least once.

The last eight teams were coming in Thursday, the Lakers and 76ers among them.

NHL

RUFF HIRED AS DEVILS COACH, FITZGERALD STAYS ONASGM>> The New Jersey Devils hired veteran coach Lindy Ruff to take over one of the NHL’s youngest teams and removed the interim tag from Tom Fitzgerald’s title as general manager.

The former New York Rangers assistant replaces interim coach Alain Nasreddine, who guided the team to a 19-16-8 record after John Hynes was fired on Dec. 3. Fitzgerald had served as interim general manager since Ray Shero was fired on Jan. 12.

Soccer

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE ROUND OF 16 TO BE PLAYED AT HOME SITES >> The four Champions League round of 16 second-leg ties postponed because of COVID-19 in March will be played next month in the stadiums of the home teams providing traveling is possible without restrictions, UEFA said.

European soccer’s governing body added in a statement that the same arrangements would apply to the outstanding second-leg matches in the Europa League round of 16 ties. UEFA also said that all matches in European club competition would be played without spectators until further notice, a measure it described as prudent.

The Champions League ties still to be completed are Manchester City vs. Real Madrid, Bayern Munich vs. Chelsea, Juventus vs. Olympique Lyonnais and Barcelona vs. Napoli. The matches are due to be played on Aug 7-8.

CBS PICKS UP CHAMPIONS LEAGUE RIGHTS AFTER TURNER OPTS OUT >> CBS will get an early start on its Champions League deal, showing games next month when the pandemic-delayed competition resumes. The rights to the rest of this Champions League season and all of next season became available last month when Turner opted out of its 2018-21 deal for exclusive English language rights in the United States.

Motorsports

CINDRIC EARNS XFINITY WIN >> Austin Cindric held off Chase Briscoe in overtime to earn his first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory of the season in the Shady Rays 200 at Kentucky Speedway.

A spin by Harrison Burton with five laps remaining set up the overtime restart, which lined up race leader Cindric on the outside, while Briscoe took the inside lane. Briscoe slid through Turns 1 and 2, losing ground and allowing Cindric to sail to the win.

Riley Herbst held on to finish second.

The triumph serves as Cindric’s first win on an oval after back-to-back wins at road courses in 2019.

Track and field

RACE GLITCH FOR LYLES HIGHLIGHTS RARE TRACK MEET >> It was a strange sight to see 200-meter world champion Noah Lyles race on a track in Florida while two opponents started simultaneously in Switzerland and the Netherlands.

It was stranger still to see the clock stop at 18.90 seconds when Lyles crossed the finish line — way ahead of Usain Bolt’s 19.19 world record set 11 years ago.

Turns out that socially distanced, technologically challenging meets might not be track and field’s best plan beyond the pandemic.

Lyles had been mistakenly lined up to run only 185 meters of the Bradenton track for his star turn of this curious version of the storied Weltklasse meet in Zurich on Thursday.

Weltklasse should have been the final meeting of the elite Diamond League series in September, reuniting many gold medalists from the Tokyo Olympics.

Instead, no Diamond League program has been possible and the 2020 Olympics were postponed until after the 22-year-old Lyles turns 24 in July next year.

Olympics

TOKYO GAMES FACE SKEPTICS, 1-DAY COVID-19 INFECTION RECORD >> The spokesman for the Tokyo Olympics expects the postponed games to go ahead in 2021 despite a recent poll in Japan in which 77% of respondents said they did not believe the games could be held next year.

The poll by the Japan News Network said only 17% thought it could be held next year in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Masa Takaya, the spokesman, was speaking Thursday on remote hookup on a day of contentious news for the Tokyo Olympics.

Tokyo’s city government reported a single-day record of 224 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, surpassing a high of 204 in April. Though low by many standards, it marks a steady increase over the last week in the Japanese capital.

College athletics

REPORT: 73 PERCENT OF ADS DOUBT COLLEGE FOOTBALL STARTS ON TIME >> Almost three-fourths — 73 percent — of athletic directors at FBS schools said they think the coronavirus pandemic will force a delay in the college football season, according to a survey by Stadium.

Among the 115 athletic directors who responded to the anonymous survey, 36 percent of them told Stadium’s Brett McMurphy that they believe the season will be limited to conferenceonly play.

In all, just 27 percent predicted the season would go off as planned. When only athletic directors of Power Five programs are included, the number falls to 22 percent.