American Anthony Kim became the youngest winner on the US PGA Tour in more than six years, capturing the Wachovia Championship in a rout on Sunday for his first PGA triumph.
The 22-year-old won with a final-round three-under par 69 to finish on 16-under 272, breaking the tournament record of 13-under set last year by Tiger Woods.
“This is what I’ve been dreaming about my whole life, and fulfilling this dream is awesome,” Kim said.
“It has been a long ride, but it sure is worth it. I’m a little numb right now, but that walk up 18 was the best feeling of my entire life,” he said.
Kim began the round with a four-stroke lead, stretched the margin to six strokes as he began the back side thanks to four birdies on the outward nine and cruised to the clubhouse without a serious challenge at Quail Hollow.
Kim’s margin of victory was the largest in the event’s brief six-year history.
■CREAMER TAKES TITLE
AFP, TULSA, Oklahoma
Paula Creamer sank a tension-packed birdie putt on the second playoff hole to defeat veteran Juli Inkster on Sunday to win the LPGA SemGroup Championship.
Battling an LPGA Hall of Fame legend into extra holes for the second week in a row, Creamer twice missed title-winning putts at the 18th hole before finding the bottom of the cup at the par-4 10th to capture her sixth LPGA crown.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier