Hojgaard tied for 12th after first round of British Masters in bid to get into Ryder Cup team
Hojgaard needs to finish in a two-way tie for 29th or better in the tournament being held at The Belfry to earn enough points to overtake Shane Lowry, who is clinging onto sixth place in the list of automatic qualifiers.
Hojgaard is currently in a tie with five other players — including his twin brother, Nicolai — for 12th place, three shots off the lead shared by Marcel Siem, Li Haotong, Matthias Schwab and Thomas Aiken.
The top six get into the European team automatically. Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre and Tyrrell Hatton are already guaranteed to be at next month's matches at Bethpage Black.
Lowry is not competing in the British Masters.
Luke Donald will announce his six captain's picks to complete the 12-man team on Sept. 1.
___
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
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Associated Press
30 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Russell Henley birdies last 3 holes for a 61 to lead Tour Championship over Scheffler
ATLANTA (AP) — Russell Henley hardly missed a putt. Scottie Scheffler hardly missed a fairway. They led a parade of players who seized on the soft conditions at East Lake to begin the race for the Tour Championship and the season-ending FedEx Cup title. Henley one-putted six of his last seven holes and made three birdie putts from 40 feet or longer and, with three straight birdies at the end, had a 9-under 61 to build a two-shot lead over the world's No. 1 player. Scheffler didn't miss a beat from last week — really the last five months — and finished with a 25-foot par save on the 16th and two birdies for a 63. That's his lowest round by two shots in his six appearances at East Lake. The entertainment came from Rory McIlroy, who bladed a bunker shot on the par-5 18th hole over the green and off the grandstands, and then back onto the green. He made an 18-foot putt for a most unlikely birdie. Scheffler was rooting hard for McIlroy, not so much for the birdie but so they could avoid a length ruling to finish. Seconds after Scheffler holed his 4-foot birdie putt, the horn sounded to stop play because of approaching storms that led to East Lake being evacuated. Left behind was a leaderboard filled with red numbers in a tournament that has a $40 million purse in official money for the top 30 players, all of them with an equal chance. Only two players were over par. Rain hammered East Lake on Wednesday — and again after the first round ended — leaving the course soft enough that players could lift, clean and place their golf balls in the short grass. 'I felt like with it being lift, clean and place and somewhat soft compared to last year when the greens were brand new, it was a little bit softer, so it was just a little bit more gettable,' Henley said. There was also that no-so-small matter of putting. Henley already has a great reputation with the putter, and on this day he holed some 207 feet worth of putts. 'Probably the most I've ever made,' he said. Three of the five players who got in at 64 was enough to wonder which cup was on their minds. Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay all finished outside the top six who qualified for the Ryder Cup and have to wait on being one of six captain's picks. All three are seen as likely picks. 'I don't think you're ever comfortable until you get that call and you're on the team,' Morikawa said. 'Look, I hope I've done enough. We'll have to wait and see. But I think, yeah, my focus right now is to try and go out and win this golf tournament. I think if I do that, then hopefully that's enough, and we'll see how everything plays out.' Scheffler is coming off his fifth victory of the season last week at the BMW Championship and didn't miss a step. All that slowed him was some swirling wind as the storm approached, making it a little tougher to get close for birdie chances with a wedge in hand. The only fairway he missed — except for No. 18, in which the ball rolled through the middle into the first cut — was at the 16th, and that left him in his biggest predicament. From the rough he went down a deep swale to the right, the one place he knew to avoid. 'I knew going down there right of 16 was a huge penalty. We had talked about it in the practice rounds,' he said. 'And our job was just to get the ball back on the green, which I did, and it was nice to hole that long putt. But it was a reminder of how key it was to keep the ball in play. 'I missed one (fairway) on 16 and all of a sudden I'm almost playing for bogey,' he said. 'It's pretty important around this place.' Tommy Fleetwood, who keeps giving himself chances at his first win on the PGA Tour, also was at 66, along with BMW Championship runner-up Robert MacIntyre, who is ready for a return to Scotland given how hot has been in Memphis, Baltimore and Atlanta. 'I wear as much sun cream as I possibly can. I look like Casper the Ghost out there, to be honest. I get a lot of shouts about my sun cream,' MacIntyre said. It beats the shouts he got last week at Caves Valley when he lost a four-shot lead to Scheffler in the final round and was hearing from the pro-American crowd along the way. MacIntyre was as upset about how he handled the crowd as he was his golf, but figures it will be a great teaching moment for him at Bethpage Black for the Ryder Cup next month. 'There's a couple of things that I know that I'm going to change, but do you know what it's really going to help me for? Bethpage,' he said. 'I'm always going to be fiery, I'm always going to yell, swear, yell, get angry. 'But just the way I interacted with the crowd, I was trying to keep them out of the way, but instead of doing what I did on Saturday and bringing them into it.' ___ AP golf:
Forbes
30 minutes ago
- Forbes
Tour Championship's Future At East Lake In Question
The PGA Tour comes to a conclusion this week at the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, GA, and there are rumors the host site could be changing. East Lake has hosted the Tour Championship since 2004, when its primary sponsor, Coca-Cola, urged the Tour to move away from its previous rotating site, Champions Golf Club in Houston, TX. Since its inception in 1987, the Tour Championship has been held at eight venues, including Pinehurst No. 2, The Olympic Club, Pebble Beach, Oak Hill, Harbour Town, and Southern Hills. 'It's been discussed,' said Adam Scott, a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board. 'We've questioned everything at some point. I couldn't tell you contractually how long we're tied there, but East Lake is where it's at.' Title sponsors of the PGA Tour Playoff series may have influenced the location decisions. FedEx, headquartered in Memphis, TN and sponsor of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, helped turn what was once a rotating event into a fixed one. Previously, the Westchester Classic (later known as The Barclays) was held at Westchester Country Club in New York from 1967 to 2007 before rotating between venues along the East Coast. The BMW Championship, formerly the Western Open, also provides a case study. For decades, the event was tied to Chicago: played at Butler National from 1974 to 1990 and then at Cog Hill from 1991 to 2006. Its proximity to the Western Golf Association's headquarters played a major role. A rebrand and new title sponsor later, the BMW Championship became a rotating event, ironically no longer confined to the 'West.' 'I don't hear fans say it is an exciting golf course to watch golf,' professional golfer Peter Malnati said of East Lake. 'I know it does a lot for the community and that's very important, but I think it would be cool for our biggest trophy to be given away at a course that really excites fans. But there are a lot of things that have to be done in the right way to make that happen. I think East Lake works really hard to be an amazing host. I'd love to see our fans be excited about where we play the Tour Championship in addition to the tournament itself.' The current contract with East Lake Golf Club ends in 2027. With the BMW Championship already rotating and frequent player feedback about the heat and humidity in Georgia in August, the Tour Championship could be next to move. SSG, with its $1.5 billion investment into the PGA Tour, might consider adding another stop in its headquarters city, Orlando, FL, though that too would be another steamy summer site. Jason Day has voiced support for rotating playoff venues, starting with the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, where he struggles at TPC Southwind. 'I'm like, when can we leave?' Day said. 'But I definitely think we should move around a bit, yeah, for sure.' Several major metropolitan areas in the U.S. currently lack regular PGA Tour stops but could provide fresh tests if the playoff events rotated. Cities like Chicago, Denver, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, and Portland could all offer championship caliber venues. Cooler climates in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest would also give players a more comfortable environment to compete in. Normal Tour venues must have facilities for fields of around 150 players, but the reduced playoff fields require less dining, practice, and locker space. However, infrastructure for media, grandstands, and broadcast technology will still be critical factors in venue selection. With East Lake's contract expiring, a new investor in the mix, and shifting sponsor priorities, both the Tour Championship and the FedEx St. Jude Championship could soon be on the move.
Forbes
30 minutes ago
- Forbes
Bundesliga Preview: Can Anyone Stop Bayern Munich This Season?
After securing the first-ever Franz-Beckenbauer Supercup title holders Bayern Munich will host RB Leipzig to kick off the 63rd Bundesliga campaign at the Allianz Arena. Bayern Munich regained the title last year after finishing the 2023/24 campaign in third place behind Bayer Leverkusen and VfB Stuttgart. At first glance, anything but the 35th German championship and the 34th Bundesliga title would be a major surprise. After all, there is no doubt that the Rekordmeister has the most talented squad in the Bundesliga. Numbers by Transfermarkt underline this observation. With a market value of €875 million ($1.01 billion), Bayern's squad value is significantly ahead of the second most valuable squad in the league: RB Leipzig. Leipzig's squad value of just €493 million ($572 million) is almost half of Bayern's evaluation. That, however, doesn't mean that there is no hope for a title race. Even though Bayern Munich added superstar winger Luis Díaz from Liverpool, the squad seems thin. Together with Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund, the Rekordmeister has the smallest squad in the league. Overall, Bayern has 26 players listed in its squad. But unlike Leverkusen and Dortmund, that squad includes four goalkeepers and four youth players: Paul Wanner, Lennart Karl, Wisdom Mike and Jonah Kusi-Asare. Furthermore, one of these youth players, Wanner, is now on the move and set to join PSV Eindhoven. Bayern's squad strength has certainly been a discussion point among players. 'It is one of the smallest squads I played in,' Bayern star striker Harry Kane said to Transfermarkt after the Supercup. 'There is still some time from now until the end of the transfer window. But that's down to [director of sport] Max [Eberl] and [sporting director] Christoph [Freund] as well as the coach to make those kinds of decisions. We also have a couple of really good young players who have done well in preseason games. But yeah, we are a little light, if we are being honest, but from our point of view, we, the players, can't control that. The feeling then was that Bayern was still going to add players. But instead, Wanner is now set to leave, and no new players will come in. There is certainly a major risk in that approach. With Jamal Musiala and Alphonso Davies out for the foreseeable future, the Bayern squad appears to be just one injury away from a major crisis. While that's bad for the Rekordmeister, it provides an opportunity for the other teams in the Bundesliga. Who are the major challengers? The most obvious choice seems to be Leverkusen. But Die Werkself also underwent a major turnover this summer. Head coach Xabi Alonso left for Real Madrid and was replaced by Erik ten Hag. Star players Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong (both Liverpool), Granit Xhaka (Sunderland), Jonathan Tah (Bayern Munich), Amine Adli (Bournemouth), and Lukas Hradecky (Monaco) are all gone. By the time of writing, Leverkusen was also in the final stages of selling Victor Boniface to Milan. Several new players arrived. Among them are Jarell Quansah (Liverpool), Malick Tillman (PSV Eindhoven), Loïc Badé (Sevilla), Ibrahim Maza (Hertha), Mark Flekken (Brentford), Ernest Poku (AZ Alkmaar), and several younger players. The talent is there, but putting together a new team that can challenge for the title will take time. The same can be said for Leipzig. The Red Bulls have once again a young and exciting team after spending north of $100 million on new players. However, the departures of Benjamin Sesko and Xavi Simons will need to be compensated for. Leipzig added Johan Bakayoko (PSV), Yan Diomande (Leganes), Rômulo (Göztepe), Ezechiel Banzuzi (Leuven), Andrija Maksimović (Crvena zvezda), and Max Finkgräfe (Köln). All those players are exciting names, but new head coach Ole Werner will take some time to find a structure to fully integrate all those wunderkinds. Teams to watch will be Eintracht Frankfurt and VfB Stuttgart. Frankfurt lost Hugo Ekitiké to Liverpool but otherwise kept together and added to an exciting squad. Cup winners Stuttgart has perhaps the best coach in the league in the form of Sebastian Hoeneß. Stuttgart is a team to watch. Die Schwaben were able to hold on to emerging star Nick Woltemade and added Noah Darvich. Darvich was the biggest star of the 2023 U17 World Cup, guiding Germany to the trophy. Darvich is set to replace Enzo Millot, who opted to leave for Saudi Arabia. Bayern's biggest obstacle to winning the title will, however, be an old enemy: Borussia Dortmund. After a horrendous season that was only just salvaged by new head coach Niko Kovac, Dortmund looks like the most stable of all the big Bundesliga clubs. Indeed, under Kovac, Dortmund was only second to Bayern Munich in points per game last season. The Berlin-born Croatian doesn't play the most exciting football but that might be a good thing for Dortmund. Focused on defense and relying up front on Serhou Guirassy, who might be the most reliable goalscorer in the Bundesliga, the Black and Yellows are a serious title contender this season. That's perhaps good news for the Bundesliga. Over the last couple years, Leverkusen challenged Bayern, winning the title in 2024. But Dortmund is Germany's second biggest club, and a title challenge between the Black and Yellows and Bayern would certainly generate significant attention.
