Jeff Quinney, who is playing in just his 11th tournament of the year, fired a seven-under par 63 to grab a share of the lead after Thursday’s first round of the Wyndham Championship.
The 32-year-old Quinney is tied with fellow American Tom Gainey after the opening round of the final tournament before the start of the USPGA Tour’s playoffs.
The top 125 players in FedEx Cup points standings are eligible for the playoffs.
Quinney currently sits in 215th place and needs a win in Greensboro to get into the post-season.
Quinney, who is chasing his first PGA Tour win, rolled in eight birdies, including five in a row early in his round.
Gainey had five birdies and an eagle in equaling his career-best round. Australia’s Stuart Appleby is alone in third after shooting a seven-under 64.
South African Ernie Els, England’s Paul Casey, Fiji’s Vijay Singh and Carl Pettersson of Sweden are part of a group of 10 players tied at 65.
Quinney started and finished strong as his approach shot on his final hole of the day landed just three feet from the cup for a birdie. Starting on the back nine, he birdied four straight holes beginning with No. 12, but gave one shot back with a bogey on the 18th.
Gainey had four birdies and an eagle on his front nine. One of his biggest problems of the day came on No. 15 when he landed in the water off the tee, but he still managed to par the hole.
Els, who sits at No. 126 in the standings, needs a strong showing this week as he is on the edge of making the playoffs.
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