A sick Phil Mickelson didn’t crawl out of bed until barely an hour before the final round, but it did not stop him from winning the CA Championship on Sunday.
“I knew I was going to play well. That’s why they say ‘beware of the ailing golfer,’” he said after edging fellow American Nick Watney by one stroke at Doral’s Blue Monster.
Mickelson claimed his first victory in a World Golf Championships event, shooting 69 to finish at 19-under-par 269. Under the circumstances, it was one of the best victories of his career. He also moved into second in the world rankings behind Tiger Woods.
The left-handed American was ill with what he described as a virus and felt so bad on Saturday night that he got his caddie to drive him to a hospital.
Watney shot 70 for 18-under, while compatriot Jim Furyk (67) stormed home for third place on 16-under, with Tiger Woods equal ninth on 11-under.
■PUERTO RICO OPEN
AFP, RIO GRANDE, PUERTO RICO
Michael Bradley sank a birdie putt on the 18th hole Sunday to capture the Puerto Rico Open.
Bradley drained an 11-footer to edge Jason Day and Brett Quigley at Trump International Golf Club.
With a closing round of two-under-par 70, Bradley finished at 14-under 274.
“I’m almost 43 and you don’t know really how many opportunities you’re going to have,” Bradley said. “I’m not Tiger Woods. So when I do have an opportunity, come a Sunday, that maybe have a chance to win, it’s probably a little more special.”
Day and Quigley both finished at 13-under with Bart Bryant and Greg Chalmers another shot back in a tie for fourth.
Bradley collected US$630,000 for his third PGA Tour win and first since the Doral-Ryder Open in 1998.
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