Golf

ATLANTA — Dustin Johnson hit his stride at just the right time and it paid off in a big way.Johnson finally won the FedEx Cup on Monday by holding his nerve, hitting just enough fairways and making a few key putts when his lead began to shrink. He tapped in for birdie on the last hole for a 2-under 68, giving him a three-shot victory over Justin Thomas and Xander Schauffele in the Tour Championship.Johnson won the $15 million prize, the biggest in golf. Equally important was getting his named etched on that silver FedEx Cup trophy alongside some of the best from his generation, starting with Tiger Woods and most recently Rory McIlroy.“This is a tough golf course. No lead is safe,” Johnson said. “The guys gave me a good fight today.”He became the first No. 1 seed at the Tour Championship to win the FedEx Cup since Tiger Woods in 2009.Johnson was staked to a five-shot lead at 19-under-par — 9-under on his own score and starting the tournament at 10 under as the No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup.He finished at 21-under.Schauffele, who tends to bring his best to big moments, and Thomas each got within three shots on the front nine. They both closed to within two shots deep on the back nine at East Lake.Johnson gave the lightest fist pump — that’s big emotion for him — when he holed a 20-foot par putt on the 13th hole that kept his lead at three. He made nothing but pars on the back nine until the outcome was no longer in doubt.Thomas made bogey from a wild tee shot to the right on the 17th. Schauffele also had to scramble on the 17th, escaping with par after a tee shot into the bunker. And on the par-5 18th, Johnson unleashed a drive that started left along the pine trees and faded gently toward the middle of the fairway.That set up a birdie from the front bunker, a hug with brother Austin, his caddie, and a trophy he long wanted.Schauffele had the lowest score over 72 holes at 15-under 265, but without a victory this year, he started at No. 14 in the FedEx Cup, spotting the world’s No. 1 player seven shots.Schauffele and Thomas tied for second, each earning $4.5 million.Jon Rahm, the No. 2 seed, closed with a 66 to finish fourth and earn $3 million. Scottie Scheffler, who a year ago was getting ready to start his rookie year, had a 66-65 finish and was fifth for a $2.5 million payoff.And so wrapped up the strangest season on the PGA Tour, which doesn’t feel like the end at all except for the $15 million awarded to Johnson, $14 million now and $1 million deferred.The new season starts Thursday. Two majors are still to be played.Golf was shut down for three months and when it restarted, Johnson was No. 111 in the FedEx Cup. He won the Travelers Championship and a month later began a stretch that brought him to the prize he desperately wanted.In four straight tournaments against the best fields, he had the 54-hole three times and was tied in the other. He converted one into an 11-shot win. He lost to a 65 by Collin Morikawa at the P.G.A. Championship and to a 65-foot putt by Rahm at the BMW Championship.He badly wanted the last one, and even staked to a five-shot lead to par at East Lake, it was never easy.Johnson made an 18-foot birdie early that was important because Schauffele kept hitting it close. Johnson had consecutive birdies through the par-5 sixth and his lead remained at five.But he went well right off the tee at No. 7 and had to pitch back to the fairway. He three-putted from 55 feet on the fringe at No. 8 and dropped another shot. The lead kept shrinking. Johnson rolled his long birdie putt on the par-3 ninth some 7 feet by, and he made the par putt coming back to keep his lead at 3.No putt was bigger than the 13th, when his lead was down to two shots over Schauffele. Johnson went from left rough to right of the green and chipped weakly to 20 feet. He drilled the par putt, restored the lead to three and was on his way.“It’s a very tough trophy to win,” Johnson said. “I controlled my own destiny, but I still had to go out and play well. I had a lot of great players right behind me. It got close at the end. I knew it was going to come down the stretch and I’d have to hit some golf shots.” More

OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. — Even with so few people around, Jon Rahm could hear from the other side of the Olympia Fields clubhouse that Dustin Johnson had made a 45-foot birdie on the final hole to force a playoff on Sunday in the BMW Championship.Resilient as ever, Rahm went out and made some magic of his own.From one end of the 18th green to the other, Rahm’s putt from just over 65 feet rolled down the ridge and into the cup, setting off a roar so loud it nearly made up for not having spectators.“I knew how good D.J. has been playing,” Rahm said. “I was expecting nothing else. I was fully confident it was going to come into a playoff and hoping to win it. Never did I think I would make another 50-, 60-footer, a couple of breaks in there, to end up winning it.”Johnson could only laugh at his birdie putt, eliciting a rare show of emotion — a slow, sweeping upper cut. And he had the same reaction to what Rahm did. What else is there to do?“I played an unbelievable putt, got in the playoff and then Jon made an even more ridiculous putt on top of me,” said Johnson, who has been a runner-up twice and won in his last three starts.The course that all week felt like a United States Open delivered the kind of excitement typical of the Masters.Rahm’s big birdie putt on the first extra hole spared him thoughts of his blunder in the third round, when he picked up his ball on the fifth green without marking it, leading to a one-shot penalty and his only bogey of the weekend.He tore through the back nine Sunday on his way to a six-under 64, the lowest round of the week, to finish at four-under 276.Johnson, a 54-hole leader for his third straight tournament and coming off an 11-shot victory last week at the T.P.C. Boston, birdied three of his opening four holes to open a three-shot lead, dropped a pair of shots around the turn and then delivered in the clutch with his 45-foot birdie putt on the last hole for a 67.It was only good enough to stay at No. 1 in the world rankings by a slim margin.He also stays at No. 1 in the FedEx Cup going to the Tour Championship, meaning he will start the chase for the $15 million bonus at 10-under par, two ahead of Rahm, the No. 2 seed.Joaquin Niemann, the 21-year-old from Chile, also made a spirited run with a 67 and was in the lead until a bogey on the 14th and no birdies the rest of the way. He tied for third with Hideki Matsuyama, who had a 69.Tony Finau closed with a 65 to finish three behind. They were the only five players under par at Olympia Fields.Rahm won for the second time this year on the PGA Tour, and the 11th time in his career worldwide.Mackenzie Hughes had reason to celebrate, too.He was on the verge of playing his way into the top 30 who advance to East Lake when he took a sloppy bogey on the 17th. Needing a par on the 18th, he put his approach into the front bunker, splashed out to 5 feet and raised both arms when it dropped.Niemann also moved into the top 30, though he was chasing victory all day.Adam Long and Kevin Streelman were bumped out, and Long suffered the worst of those fates. He was projected 30th in the FedEx Cup until Corey Conners three-putted from 5 feet for double bogey on the final hole. That allowed Billy Horschel to move up enough spots on the leaderboard to move to the 30th and final spot by three points over Long.The top 30 are assured spots in at least three majors next year, along with the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua to start the year. The winners-only event is taking the top 30 in the FedEx Cup from having lost three months of the season to the Covid-19 pandemic.Tiger Woods missed all the action. He made double bogey on his 17th hole for a 71, making this the first time he was over par in all four rounds of a tournament since the Bridgestone Invitational in 2010.Woods failed to reach the Tour Championship for the second straight year. He now gets two weeks off before the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, and Olympia Fields proved to be a good test for that. More

OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. — Rory McIlroy doesn’t need fans to help him keep his head in the game at the BMW Championship. Olympia Fields is so tough that it won’t allow anything but his full attention on every shot.McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay made their share of mistakes on Friday and shrugged them off, because that’s bound to happen on the toughest test the PGA Tour has seen this year. By the end of another steamy afternoon south of Chicago, they were the sole survivors to beat par.One week after McIlroy admitted to going through the motions without spectators around to provide the cheers, he had a one-under-par 69 and shared the 36-hole lead with Cantlay.It was plenty tough for Tiger Woods, whose PGA Tour season appears to be two rounds from being over.Woods didn’t have enough good shots to atone for his bad ones, and he had to make a 35-foot par putt on his final hole to shoot a 75, leaving him nine shots behind. He was toward the bottom of the pack at a tournament in which he needs to finish around fourth to be among the top 30 who advance to the Tour Championship.Cantlay holed a 50-foot chip for birdie and holed out a 50-yard wedge for eagle. He also missed the green on three of the par-3s, the last one leading to a double bogey. He finished with a 6-iron out of the thick rough and made a 40-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole. It added to a 68, matching the best score of the round.He and McIlroy were at one-under 139, a shot ahead of Hideki Matsuyama and Dustin Johnson, who were going in opposite directions when it was time to sign their scorecards. Matsuyama, the only player to reach four under at any point this week, dropped four shots over his last 10 holes for a 73. Johnson finished birdie-birdie for 69.The phrase “U.S. Open” is being heard a lot more than “FedEx Cup” this week.“I think the test is what’s helped me focus and concentrate, because if you lose focus out there for one second — just one lapse in concentration can really cost you around here,” McIlroy said. “I think one of the big keys this week is just not making big numbers. If you hit it out of position, get it back in position — make sure that your worst score is bogey and move on. Honestly, bogeys aren’t that bad out here.”McIlroy made a mistake on the 14th hole by going long and left, and only a great wedge to a back pin to 5 feet kept him from a big blunder, even though he missed the par putt. He flirted with trouble later in his round on the fifth hole with a wedge from 134 yards that came up 30 yards short, the pin tucked behind a big bunker. He left that in collar short of the green and got up and down for bogey.Cantlay doesn’t expect to hole out twice a round with wedges and hopes he can sharpen up his game a little. Still, he loves the idea of having to think and plot his way around the course.“It’s about as stiff of a test as you would want,” he said. “It’s very, very difficult, and you have to play from the fairway, and you have to play from below the hole, frankly. The greens have so much slope on them that you really need to be putting uphill. And so if you’re in the rough, it gets exponentially harder to do that.”For those playing well — anywhere within a few shots of par, in this case — it was an enjoyable challenge. For everyone, regardless of the score, it was a grind.“I don’t know if any rain will matter, really,” Kevin Kisner said after a bogey-bogey finish had ruined an otherwise good day and given him a 70, leaving him three shots behind. “I think even par wins the golf tournament.”Doesn’t 280 always win the United States Open? That’s what Arnold Palmer used to say.And this feels like a U.S. Open.Go back to the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills two years ago to find the last time someone won at over par (Brooks Koepka). For nonmajors, the tour said no one had won with an over-par score since Bruce Lietzke at the Byron Nelson Classic in 1981.It’s a huge change from last week, when Johnson won by 11 shots at 30-under 254.“Last week was fun, too,” Johnson said. “But this week is more of a grind, that’s for sure. Every single hole out here is difficult. You’ve got to really be focused on every shot that you hit.”Among those two shots behind was Louis Oosthuizen, whose birdie in the dark on the final hole last week at TPC Boston moved him to No. 70, letting him qualify for the BMW Championship.“This is the golf course I needed to do what I must do,” he said of moving into the top 30. “Look, this can go really south on you quickly. You can shoot six, seven over on this golf course very quickly. But if you really stick to it and play middle of the greens and lag those putts, you can make a lot of pars. And you’re not going to lose spots if you’re making pars.” More

Cameron Champ expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement Thursday as PGA Tour decided to play on in the wake of walkouts in other sports. More

After a July stretch in which he missed the cut at one start and withdrew from the next, Johnson won by 11 strokes. More

TROON, Scotland — Sophia Popov marked her ball a few inches from the hole on the 18th green, pulled the brim of her cap over her face and began to cry in the arms of her caddie.The realization had finally hit her. Against all odds, she was about to become a major champion.Moments later and still wiping away tears, she tapped in the putt to complete a two-stroke victory at Royal Troon and another fairy-tale story at the Women’s British Open.Ranked No. 304, Popov had never won a senior professional event. She lost her card on the L.P.G.A. Tour at the end of last year and only qualified for the British Open with a top-10 finish two weeks ago at the Marathon Classic in Ohio, which she was playing only because higher-ranked players could not attend because of Covid-19 restrictions.This was just Popov’s fourth appearance at a major. And as she would later reveal in public for the first time, she has been bothered by health issues for the past six years, notably Lyme disease.No wonder the emotions flowed after she shot three-under 68 to finish ahead of Jasmine Suwannapura of Thailand, who shot 67, and became the first female golfer from Germany to win a major title. It is a life-changing victory, not least because the winner’s check of $675,000 was more than six times her career earnings before Sunday.“There’s a lot of hard work behind this, a lot of struggles I went through, especially healthwise,” Popov, 27, said in the presentation ceremony.“I had a lot of obstacles thrown in my way, so I’m glad I stuck with it. I almost quit playing last year — thank God I didn’t.”On a rare still day on the links in southwest Scotland, Popov began with a three-stroke lead but drove into a bunker on the first hole and missed a 10-foot par putt.She barely made a mistake after that.Popov pumped her fist after rolling in a birdie putt from 8 feet at the second hole, then made another from a similar distance at No. 3.Suwannapura, who also would have been an improbable winner with a ranking of No. 138, made four consecutive birdies from No. 4 to move within one stroke of the lead, but it was the closest she came.Birdies by Popov at Nos. 15 and 16 were greeted with furious fist pumps and left her on the cusp. She held her nerve on the final two holes, parring No. 17 and then playing No. 18 cautiously to leave herself three putts to be champion.She needed only two.“It is an incredible story personally for me,” Popov said. “That’s why I think I broke down on the 18th hole, because it has been something I couldn’t have dreamed of just a week ago.“It’s incredible that golf allows for these things to happen.” She added, “I pretty much had the week of my life.”It was the second straight upset win at the Women’s British Open. Last year, the 20-year-old Japanese player Hinako Shibuno triumphed when playing her first event outside her native country.This was the first women’s major of the pandemic-disrupted year. It was played without spectators at Troon because of coronavirus restrictions, with Popov arriving on Tuesday having played on the second-tier Symetra Tour last week.Just three weeks ago, Popov was ranked No. 390 and pushing a trolley for her friend Anne van Dam at the Drive On Championship in the L.P.G.A.’s restart. She is now a major champion and feels her success can be an inspiration to others whose careers are in a slump.“Of course there is an elite amount of players that are always there and in contention,” she said. “But there are so many other players out there who can make it in any given week, and I want them to have the confidence they can do it, too.”No. 8-ranked Minjee Lee, who played with Popov in the final pairing, finished third at three under after a round of 69.The seven-time major champion Inbee Park was the only other player to finish the tournament under par, a 66 leaving her at one under and in fourth place. More

TROON, Scotland — As if Royal Troon isn’t playing hard enough for the world’s top female golfers this week, Dani Holmqvist is going around the wind-swept Scottish links carrying a nagging back injury from a cart crash in 2018.It is not stopping the Swedish golfer, who leads the Women’s British Open after two rounds.On another tough day when first-round leader Amy Olson shot an 81 — 14 strokes worse than Thursday — and stars like Lexi Thompson, Brooke Henderson and defending champion Hinako Shibuno missed the cut, Holmqvist shot a 1-under-par 70 in windy morning conditions to be the only player under par after 36 holes.Her two-day total of 141 left Holmqvist a stroke ahead of Austin Ernst of the United States (70) and Sophia Popov of Germany (72). The rest of the 144-strong field were over par for a tournament being played without spectators and in an isolated environment on the southwest coast due to the pandemic.Holmqvist, 32, has seemingly come out of nowhere, after having missed the cut in 13 of the 20 events she played since November 2018, when the golf cart in which she was riding at the Blue Bay event on the LPGA Tour lost control and slammed into a wall. The crash resulted in a badly inflamed facet joint in Holmqvist’s back that has required multiple injections and regular rehab.“It’s a long process and very tedious,” she said. “It’s an everyday thing.”Capturing a first major title — indeed, a first professional win at the senior level — will not be easy, and not just because of how difficult and long Troon is playing in winds that often reach 50-m.p.h.Two strokes behind Holmqvist at 1-over-par are former world No. 1 Lydia Ko (71) and current No. 8-ranked Minjee Lee, who shot 69 to tie for the lowest round on Friday. A further shot back is No. 4-ranked Nelly Korda after her round of 72.“We were like, ‘Are you scared over 1-footers, too, with this wind?’ Korda said, referring to a conversation she had with playing partner Georgia Hall, the 2018 champion. ”Because we were like shaking over it with wind and the gusts.”After what she described as the best ball-striking round of her career to shoot 67 on Thursday, Olson came back to earth with a 10-over round that included six bogeys on her first 10 holes before double-bogeys at Nos. 11 and 14.The American parred her way home to limit the damage and won’t feel out of it at 6-over.It has proved to be a week to forget for Lexi Thompson, who shot 78 on Thursday and 75 on Friday to miss the cut by two strokes. She avoided the ignominy of being penalized for using the head of her club to push away long grass from her ball on the 16th hole of her first round.“Following a discussion between chief referee David Rickman and the player prior to her signing her scorecard,” the R&A said in a statement Friday, “it was determined that, although the player had moved a growing natural object behind her ball, it had returned to its original position.“Therefore, the lie of the ball was not improved and there was no breach of Rule 8.1.” More

With two wins since the lockdown, a golfer long known for her promise appears to be fulfilling it as she arrives at the Women’s British Open. More