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Archives for August 5, 2018

PGA Tour: Putnam 1st Career Win

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RENO – A steady closing round led Andrew Putnam to his first career PGA Tour title, a four-point victory Sunday in the Barracuda Championship.

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In the tournament’s Modified Stableford Scoring system, Putnam racked up nine points in the final round to finish with 47 and hold off runner-up Chad Campbell at Montreux Golf and Country Club.

In the scoring system, players receive eight points for an albatross, five for an eagle, two for a birdie, zero for a par, one for a bogey and minus-3 for a double bogey or worse.

Campbell cut his deficit from four points to two with a birdie on the 72nd hole, but Putnam followed with his own birdie, sinking a 23-foot putt.

“I felt like no matter what, I was going to recharge here, just because of how great a spot it is and beautiful course and just a fun place to be,” Putnam said. “Just being relaxed helped me play my best golf. I didn’t start off my best, but after that I caught fire. …

“So cool to have my wife and my parents here. One of my friends flew in last night. And, yeah, just a dream week for me.”

Putnam had five birdies and a lone bogey in the last round. Campbell gained 11 points Sunday — six birdies, one bogey — to wind up at 43.

“These last two days felt really good,” Campbell said. “Really hit the ball well and putted great yesterday, and didn’t putt quite as well today, but definitely happy with the way I played. Obviously disappointed I wasn’t able to finish it off, but it happens. Definitely moving in the right direction, though.”

Putnam, 29, was playing in his 49th career PGA Tour event, his 24th this season. His best previous result was a tie for second in the FedEx St. Jude Classic earlier this year.

John Oda and J.J. Spaun, who each gained eight points in the final round, tied for third at 37.

Ollie Schniederjans, the first-round leader after a 17, added 10 points Sunday to take fifth place at 36.

William McGirt made the biggest move of the day. He scored 20 points to jump from 49th place to sixth.

Sam Saunders, who held second place after the third round, stumbled to a minus-1 score Sunday. He wound up at 34, tied with Chris Stroud (eight points on Sunday) for seventh.

Vaughn Taylor (15 points on Sunday) and Brandon Harkins (12) tied for ninth with 33 points.

The alternate-field event ran concurrently with the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio.

–Field Level Media

Thomas Takes World Golf Championship

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AKRON – Justin Thomas didn’t have to do a lot in the final round to win the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, but he did enough in scraping together a 1-under-par 69 on Sunday to garner a four-stroke victory.

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Justin Thomas

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Thomas had a three-stroke lead over Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy and England’s Ian Poulter after 54 holes and basically bided his time, made plenty of safe — if sometimes spectacular — shots and made solid decisions while letting his pursuers fall away one by one. He finished with a score of 15-under 265 at venerable Firestone Country Club’s South Course.

“I’m in a great place mentally right now — I think I just made six bogeys all week, which is pretty good around this place,” Thomas told the media afterward. “Some weeks you wake up and you are happy and in good spirits, and some weeks you aren’t.”

Kyle Stanley, who began the day five strokes behind Thomas in a tie for fifth place, carded a 68 in the final round to jump into second alone at 11 under.

Thorbjorn Olesen of Denmark and world No. 1 Dustin Johnson both fashioned 64s on Sunday to finish tied for third at 10 under. Two-time defending U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka, who had a 67, wound up alone in fifth at 9 under.

Despite the easy win, Thomas got emotional on the final hole. His grandfather, Paul, played in the 1960 PGA Championship at Firestone Country Club, and both he and his grandmother were in the gallery behind the 18th green waiting to congratulate their grandson.

“I’m glad I finally played well around here, just in time for it to leave,” Thomas said in CBS Sports’ post-round interview. “I got a little choked up when I saw grandma and grandpa over there. It’s really cool. They don’t get to come out very often anymore. This is my first PGA Tour win with them here, so it’s pretty cool. It means a lot to win on a great golf course.”

Thomas, the defending PGA Championship winner, will head to that event next week in Bellerive, in the suburbs of St. Louis, as the favorite to repeat.

“I played well at this tournament last year but putted horrifically,” Thomas said. “I had just one really good putting day this week, and it really carried me. I feel great going into the PGA next week.”

McIlroy, who was paired with Thomas in the final group, carded four bogeys in a stretch of six holes around the turn and was never a threat. He shot 73 and finished in a tie for sixth with Aaron Wise (67), Patrick Cantlay (68) and India’s Anirban Lahiri (68) at 8 under.

Jason Day of Australia had Thomas’ lead down to two shots when he birdied the 12th hole, but then he came unwound, dropping four shots over his next four holes to fall far out of contention. Day ended up with a 73 and tied for 10th with Poulter (74), Tony Finau (68) and Si Woo Kim of South Korea (69) at 7 under.

Thomas had a birdie and a bogey on the front side and a lone back-9 birdie on 13 to go with 15 pars on the day. It was his third win of the PGA Tour season and the ninth of his PGA Tour career.

Thomas, ranked third in the world, had just one top-10 finish in his past eight tournaments and missed the cut at the Open Championship in his most recent event prior to this week.

Tiger Woods, an eight-time winner at Firestone, signed for a 3-over 73 on Sunday and finished tied for 31st at even par, 15 strokes off Thomas’s winning score.

“I was trying to be aggressive as possible and fire at everything,” Woods said after his round. “It was either going to be a 62 or a 72. Things could have certainly gone better. It is what it is. I hit a few pulls this week. Also hit a few blocks. I hit it both ways. Need to clean things up.”

The tournament, which was born in 1962 as the World Series of Golf, has been played at Firestone Country Club every year since except in 2002. It will be relocated to Memphis, Tenn., next year and called the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. It will be played July 22-28 at TPC Southwind.

–Field Level Media

Sox Scout: Game 4 v. NY Yankees

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NY Yankees at Boston

When: 8:05 PM ET, Sunday, August 5, 2018
Where: Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts
Preview for Digital Sports Desk by Gracenote

BOSTON – The Boston Red Sox have all but extinguished their chief rival’s chances at an American League East title this weekend and look to finish off a four-game home sweep of the slumping New York Yankees on Sunday night. The Red Sox pushed their lead over the second-place Yankees to 8 1/2 games by outscoring them 23-9 in the first three contests of the series after posting a 4-1 victory on Saturday afternoon.J.D. Martinez launched his team-high 33rd homer of the season in the last win and is 6-for-15 with four homers during a four-game hitting streak for Boston, which won seven of its last eight contests and is 7-5 against New York in 2018. David Price will try to wipe away his two appearances against the Yankees this season (0-2, 12 runs and six homers allowed in 4 1/3 innings) when he faces red-hot Masahiro Tanaka in the series finale. New York still holds down the first wild-card spot in the AL, but has lost a season-high four games in a row and is just 7-10 in its past 17 contests. Giancarlo Stanton is 4-for-11 with two doubles and a homer while teammate Didi Gregorius boasts five RBIs in the series for the Yankees, who left the bases loaded in the ninth inning Saturday.

TV: 8:05 p.m. ET, ESPN

PITCHING MATCHUP: Yankees RH Masahiro Tanaka (9-2, 3.84 ERA) vs. Red Sox LH David Price (11-6, 3.97)

Tanaka was outstanding in his last two starts, allowing six hits over 15 scoreless innings with 17 strikeouts, to stretch his unbeaten streak to 13 outings. The 29-year-old Japan native, who posted a 1.75 ERA in four July starts, is 6-0 with a 4.00 mark in 11 road outings this season. Martinez is 7-for-14 with three homers versus Tanaka, who is 8-4 with a 4.18 ERA in 16 career starts against Boston – 1-0 with an 8.71 mark in 2018.

Price strung together three straight quality starts to end July – a month that started at Yankee Stadium when he served up five home runs in a loss. The 32-year-old Vanderbilt product, who is 22-7 all time at Fenway Park, limited Philadelphia to one run and eight hits with five strikeouts across eight innings of a no-decision Monday. Gregorius is 13-for-30 with a homer against Price, who is 15-13 with a 4.90 ERA in his career versus the Yankees.

WALK-OFFS

1. New York RHP Dellin Betances has at least one strikeout in his last 24 relief appearances, the second longest streak in club history.

2. The Red Sox placed recently acquired 2B Ian Kinsler (hamstring) on the 10-day disabled list Saturday and recalled UTIL Tony Renda.

3. The Yankees acquired INF Giovanny Urshela from Toronto for cash considerations and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre.

Patriots: Michel To Miss Preseason

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FOXBORO – New England rookie running back Sony Michel had fluid drained from a knee and is expected to miss the preseason, according to multiple reports. Michel, taken by the Patriots with the No. 31 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, left practice Wednesday with a knee injury. The Athletic reported that Michel could miss the start of the regular season as well.

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Sony Michel

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In the early days of training camp, Michel had impressed the Patriots. Needing depth at running back after the loss of Dion Lewis in free agency, the Patriots drafted a running back in the first round for the first time since 2006, when they chose Laurence Maroney of Minnesota.

Michel has a history of knee injuries. He tore his left ACL in 2011 as a sophomore at American Heritage High School in Plantation, Fla. At Georgia, he hurt his left knee in 2017 in the SEC championship game against Auburn.

When he returns, Michel is expected to contribute to a backfield that includes Rex Burkhead, James White, Mike Gillislee and Jeremy Hill.

–Field Level Media

Putnam Steals Show in Reno

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RENO – American Andrew Putnam sits atop the leaderboard after the third round of the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship, but it’s what a pair of other golfers did (and didn’t do) on Saturday that stole the show at the second-tier Reno, Nevada pro tournament, as the WGC went on in Akron.

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Putman remained hot and earned 15 points in the round under the Modified Stableford System, walking off the green at 18 with 38 points, three more than second-place Sam Saunders.

But the guy sitting in third, fellow American Chad Campbell, may have walked off the course the happiest golfer of all.

After combining for 10 points and a 45th-place standing through two rounds, Campbell picked up a whopping 22 points on Saturday to jump to 32 total, two more than fourth-place Shane Lowry of Ireland.

Campbell needed 62 shots to get through the par-72 course, his day highlighted by an eagle 3 on 13 — good for five points on the Stableford scale.

Players get eight points for an albatross, five for an eagle, two for a birdie, zero for a par, one for a bogey and minus-3 points for a double bogey or worse.

Campbell also had nine birdies and one bogey on the round.

On the other end of the spectrum, Australia’s Aaron Baddeley fell from the top spot starting the day to a tie for seventh to end it. He scored a net zero points in Round 3 to remain at 26, but he actually shot a 2-over 74.

The other non-American among the top 12 is Scotland’s Martin Laird, who scored nine points to move to 26 for the tournament. He is tied with Baddeley and Americans Chris Stroud, Michael Thompson and Ollie Schniederjans. Americans John Oda and J.J. Spaun are tied for fifth with 29 points.

The alternate-field event is running concurrently with the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio.

–Field Level Media

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