10:40 PM ET Associated Press HONOLULU — Brendan Steele had the lowest score of his PGA Tour career with a 9-under 61, giving him a two-shot lead and another chance to win the Sony Open. Steele has reason to still be smarting from last year. He had the tournament all but won until a series
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HONOLULU — New season, same story. Brendan Steele hopes the ending is different this time. A year ago at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Steele led by three going into the final round at Waialae Country Club and was up by a stroke going into the final hole of regulation. He ended up losing in
HONOLULU—Eleven-plus years, or 4,073 days, to be precise. That’s how long Stewart Cink went between victories, from the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry to the Safeway Open last fall. Now he’s looking for a second win in his last eight starts, and he’s off to a good start. Cink shot a seven-under 63 Friday at
7:28 PM ET Justin Thomas has lost an endorsement deal with Ralph Lauren after he used an anti-gay slur during the third round of last weekend’s Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii. Thomas, 27, the third-ranked player in the world, was overheard on a greenside microphone cursing at himself for missing a par putt at
Ralph Lauren has “discontinued” its sponsorship of Justin Thomas after Thomas uttered a homophobic slur during last week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions. “We are disheartened by Mr. Thomas’s recent language, which is entirely inconsistent with our values,” the company said in a statement. “While we acknowledge that he has apologized and recognizes the severity of
12:10 AM ET Associated Press HONOLULU — Nick Taylor pitched in for eagle to get his round headed in the right direction, and he kept going until he finished with a good break and one last birdie for an 8-under 62 and a two-shot lead Friday in the Sony Open. It’s still as crowded as
There aren’t many drawbacks to the PGA Tour’s Hawaii swing for the golf viewer. If we had to come up with one, though, it’d be the long wait for television coverage to begin. The five-hour time difference (for East Coasters), and no PGA Tour Live featured group coverage, means eager golf fans have to sit
In terms of all-around likability, Peter Malnati ranks near the very top on the PGA Tour. However, he may have gained a few enemies in the golf architecture crowd with his post-round comments on Thursday at the Sony Open. Following a first-round 62 at Waialae Country Club, which gave him a share of the Day
12:50 AM ET Associated Press HONOLULU — Joaquin Niemann had no regrets about the 18th hole at the Sony Open. Four days after a pair of pars on the final hole at Kapalua led to a playoff loss, Niemann holed a 50-foot chip for eagle on the 18th hole Thursday for an 8-under 62 and
The PGA Tour has three opening days. The first is the Safeway Open, the official first tournament of the wraparound season. The second is the Sentry Tournament of Champions, which is always the first tournament of the calendar year. The third is the Sony Open, which…well, come to think of it, it’s a rather weak
10:15 PM ET SAO PAULO — Brazil’s federal police arrested Argentine golfer Angel Cabrera on Thursday for extradition to his homeland to face charges for several crimes allegedly committed from 2016 to last year, two officers said. Cabrera, who won both Masters and U.S. Open championships, was on Interpol’s red code list. Police said in
HONOLULU — At age 77, Butch Harmon’s days of wandering PGA Tour driving ranges are over. But that hasn’t stopped players from going to see him in Las Vegas. In recent weeks, golf’s swing whisperer has provided council to players ranging from Jordan Spieth to Aaron Baddeley. Thursday, it paid off for Baddeley. The 39-year-old
The PGA Tour announced Thursday that the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is suspending its traditional amateur competition for 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The professional portion of the tournament, featuring a 156-player field, will continue as scheduled, beginning play on Feb. 11. However, without the amateur component, the tournament will be held on just
12:59 PM ET The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am will be played without its traditional pro-am format next month when the event is contested over two courses in Northern California. The PGA Tour announced the change due to local COVID-19 circumstances in the Monterey Peninsula area. 2 Related The professional portion, featuring 156 players, will be
On Thursday morning March 12, blue skies shone without a breath of wind at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach. All businesses and schools throughout surrounding St. Johns County were open. Andy Levinson, senior vice president of tournament administration for the PGA Tour, sat comfortably at an information booth in a hospitality tent. It was
4:49 PM ET Associated Press The Gainbridge LPGA tournament is moving to Lake Nona, giving the LPGA Tour three consecutive events in Florida to start the 2021 season. The Gainbridge LPGA, to be played Feb. 25-28, is in its second year. It was played last year at Boca Rio Golf Club in Boca Raton. The
HONOLULU — Success can sometimes have its pitfalls. Take Harris English, for example. In 2013, English won twice in a five-month span on the PGA Tour. Just two years removed from turning pro, many considered the four-time All-American out of the University of Georgia to be one of the game’s rising stars. And that’s when
New York City is ending its contracts with the Trump Organization related to running three entertainment venues, including the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point. The decision, announced Wednesday morning by the New York City mayor’s office, comes after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6 during a joint
8:59 PM ET The PGA Tour Hawai’i two-stop swings over to Honolulu and Waialae Country Club for the Sony Open. Defending champion Cameron Smith, as well as 13 of the top 30 players in the world will be in the event. So which players are the favorites, who offers good odds and what props are
I got a call the other night from my old buddy Moon Man who wanted to let me know that the hero of our glory days had died of COVID. Close readers of this column might remember him from a 2004 ranking of the Top 5 Putters I’ve Ever Seen: (1) Tiger Woods, (2) Jack Nicklaus,
10:53 PM ET Associated Press Jhonattan Vegas has tested positive for the coronavirus and withdrawn from the Sony Open in Hawaii. Vegas is the second PGA Tour player to withdraw because of a positive test this year. Jim Herman tested positive before leaving for Hawaii for the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Xander Schauffele and Webb
As if you didn’t know picking winners was hard enough already, Harris English won the Sentry Tournament of Champions last week. Yes, the same Harris English who a number of our experts picked to win outright numerous times in 2020, only to never be rewarded. Fittingly, he finally won a tournament you usually have to
Arizona State’s Missy Farr-Kaye has stared down breast cancer twice in her life and gone on to become a success story in women’s college golf, overseeing ASU’s NCAA title team in 2017. Revealing on Tuesday that she’s begun chemotherapy once more after being diagnosed with colon cancer in November, she sounded upbeat that she’ll be
7:39 AM ET The PGA Tour is expected to announce shortly that the WGC-Mexico Championship will not be played in Mexico City this year. The Feb. 25-29 is likely to be relocated because Grupo Salinas, the sponsorship group in Mexico, was unwilling to stage the event locally without the ability to have spectators or hospitality
Consider, for a moment, Denny McCarthy. In the 2019-20 season, he was the strokes gained/putting champion of the PGA Tour, and almost became just the second person (after Jason Day) to average an entire stroke gained over the field per round. It was his second straight mythical putting title, and it’s not even a little
9:48 AM ET The Open Championship’s rotation of 10 links courses has — for now — been shrunk to nine. The R&A announced Monday that Trump Turnberry, the most picturesque of the venues and where Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus staged their memorable “Duel in the Sun” in 1977, will not be granted an Open
The first full field PGA Tour event of 2021 is upon us, as Waialae Country Club will host the Sony Open for a 51st consecutive year. The Hawaiian Open dates back to 1965 (the event was skipped in 1970), and though this year’s field might lack a bit in starpower (only five of the top
Playoff losses are never easy, but Joaquin Niemann’s runner-up to Harris English at Kapalua comes with a statistical distinction that might make the result even more heartbreaking. If he even knows about this particular statistical distinction, that is. We’re pretty sure the 22-year-old golfer was unaware that his 31 birdies during the Sentry Tournament of
2:00 PM ET There are myriad reasons why golf’s governing bodies lock in their major championship venues years in advance. A good deal of planning is required to stage one of the four biggest tournaments of the year, not the least of which is making sure the course is up to top playing standards. Other
The PGA of America will no longer be holding the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. The association announced its decision to move the championship on Sunday night. “The PGA of America Board of Directors voted tonight to exercise the right to terminate the agreement to play the 2022 PGA