Millions of dollars are on offer each week but how sustainable are current funds with the pandemic affecting finances?The PGA Tour can claim to have enjoyed the last laugh. Cynicism about the viability of a new normal in golf’s big time was plentiful even after the Charles Schwab Challenge got under way in mid-June. A plan to welcome spectators back within a month swiftly fell by the wayside and there were some coronavirus-related player decisions to raise eyebrows but, generally, the PGA Tour’s travelling circus has reached this weekend’s season-ending juncture unscathed. There is, in fact, cause to praise golf’s professional return on both sides of the Atlantic as a sporting success story. Related: Sophia Popov snub is as extraordinary...
This week’s roundup also features England embarrassments, mountain bike heroics, the Bryan brothers and more1) Stephen Hendry is returning to snooker, eight years after retiring. Here are some quick career highlights, a maximum break on his last Crucible appearance, and the man himself on his best-ever shot. Hendry has won the world title seven times, his first against Jimmy White in 1990. Pity the Whirlwind, who ran into peak Hendry three more times in the final – including this nerve-shredding deciding frame in 1994. Title No 7 came against Mark Williams in 1999, but perhaps the best demonstration of Hendry’s ice-cold genius came in the 1991 Masters final, when he came from 7-0 and 8-2 down to beat Mike Hallett...
German’s unlikely triumph at Royal Troon gave her sport rare exposure but the fairytale has been lashed with a hammerGolf doesn’t have an equivalent to the own goal, which is just as well for those who administer the second women’s major of the year. If such a straightforward comparison existed, the ANA Inspiration might have been subject to more candid criticism than has already been the case. Matters relating to Sophia Popov, golf’s player of the moment, depict a sport unwilling to help itself.Popov delivered one of the finest stories of this sporting year when easing to Women’s Open glory at Royal Troon. She began the tournament as the world’s 304rd-ranked player, her last payday had been as a caddie...
Her performance against sister Serena was comfortably the best level she has exhibited in more than a year At the turn of the millennium as the 2000 tennis season arrived, Venus Williams was nowhere to be seen. She was the third best player in the world and just 19, but for three months she had withdrawn from all tournaments in sight, citing a wrist injury. By March, a curious rumour began to spread: people wondered if she was on the verge of retirement. The rumours soon reached her family, which they responded to by simply tossing a gallon of petrol all over the flames: “I would like to see her retire now. I would love to see her do that,”...
In 2017 Spieth became only the second player to win three majors before turning 24, but he has won nothing sinceLast Thursday afternoon in San Francisco three men were out alone on the range at TPC Harding Park: Jordan Spieth, his caddie, Michael Greller, and his coach, Cameron McCormick. Spieth had finished his opening round of the US PGA Championship three-and-a-half hours earlier. He’d shot 73, three-over, and was eight-off the lead, tied 109th. Now he was sitting cross-legged, his arms draped over his knees, staring into the middle distance like the answers he was looking for were hiding somewhere down there at the far end of the range. Related: Collin Morikawa makes grand plans for further glory after US...