MEDINAH, Ill. — Justin Thomas opened with five straight birdies, added a pair of eagles and shattered the course record at soft, vulnerable Medinah with an 11-under-par 61 to take a six-shot lead into the final round of the BMW Championship.
Thomas hit 5-wood to 2 feet for an eagle on No. 10, holed out from 180 yards with an 8-iron on No. 16 and made eight birdies to turn a tight race into a one-man show.
Thomas was at 21-under 195, six shots clear of Tony Finau (68) and Patrick Cantlay (67). He has a clear path to his first victory in a year, and it would give him the FedEx Cup lead going into the Tour Championship at East Lake.
The goal for Tiger Woods is simply to get to the Tour Championship, where last year he ended five years without winning. Woods had a bogey-free 67, his lowest score since the final round of the Memorial.
LONG POND, Pa. — IndyCar points leader Josef Newgarden will start on the pole at Pocono Raceway after rain washed out qualifying on Saturday.
The field for Sunday’s race was set on points: Alexander Rossi starts second, followed by Simon Pagenaud and Scott Dixon. With four races left this season, Newgarden holds a 16-point advantage over Rossi in the championship standings. Pagenaud is 47 points back while Dixon, the reigning IndyCar champion, trails by 62.
Pagenaud is the only driver among the contenders to not score a podium finish at Pocono. Newgarden has two runner-up finishes (2015, 2017), Dixon won in 2013.
NORWICH, Conn. — A man has been charged in connection with an online bomb threat at a Connecticut minor league baseball stadium amid a dispute between the team’s owner and a Muslim civil rights group.
Norwich police say they arrested 44-year-old James Quinn, of Waterford, Conn., after the bomb threat prompted a search of Dodd Stadium on Friday and delayed the game for about 10 minutes. No explosives were found.
The threat came hours after Connecticut Tigers owner E. Miles Prentice announced he would meet with leaders of various faiths, after refusing to meet with a Muslim civil rights group he accused of supporting terrorists.
MASON, Ohio — Ashleigh Barty was upset by Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-2, 6-4, in the Western & Southern Open semifinals, missing her chance to return to the No. 1 ranking ahead of the U.S. Open.
Barty dropped an opening set Saturday for the third straight match, but couldn’t overcome the slow start this time. A resurgent Kuznetsova earned her third win over a Top 10 player this week and reached the final for the first time this season.
Barty had slipped behind Naomi Osaka in the latest rankings. She would have jumped back ahead by winning Saturday. Osaka, the defending U.S. Open champion, withdrew in the quarterfinals with a sore knee.
Serena Williams dropped out during her first match of the tournament because of back spasms.
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