Late Fleetwood charge lights up FedEx play-offs
Tommy Fleetwood hit four birdies in the final four holes at the St Jude Championship, the first round of the FedExCup play-offs, to finish one shot off the lead on day one.Englishman Fleetwood, 34, was two under at the turn but hit a superb run of form coming in to end the day with a seven-under 63 - one behind leader Akshay Bhatia in Memphis.Fleetwood's compatriots Harry Hall and Justin Rose are a further shot back in joint-third, along with USA's Bud Cauley.American Bhatia came into the tournament 45th in the FedExCup standings, with a top-50 finish qualifying players for the following seasons signature events.After Memphis, the top 50 will advance to the BMW Championship in Maryland on 14-17 August.The season-ending Tour Championship, featuring the top 30 players, takes place in Atlanta the following week.Bhatia said: "Im just really trying to have a little more peace on the golf course."I think this game can consume your life, your happiness, and so I'm just trying to figure out ways to change that because I feel like I don't really want to live my life based off of an unstable game."Bhatia's remarks are similar to those made by world number one Scottie Scheffler before he won the Open last month.Scheffler is five shots off the lead after a bogey at 18.Three-time FedEx Cup winner Rory McIlroy, 36, struggled at the St Jude Championship last year, finishing joint-second last on nine over par, and is not playing this week.
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Wales Online
18 minutes ago
- Wales Online
Tommy Fleetwood's net worth and wife who rejected him due to 23-year age gap
Tommy Fleetwood's net worth and wife who rejected him due to 23-year age gap Tommy Fleetwood's net worth and relationship with his wife Clare as the golfer aims to end his PGA Tour record at the St Jude Championship Tommy Fleetwood has been married to his wife and manager Clare since 2017 (Image:) Tommy Fleetwood is setting his sights on breaking his PGA Tour record in Memphis. The 34-year-old golfer is participating in the St Jude Championship at TPC Southwind. Despite finishing as a runner-up in two major tournaments and twice being part of victorious Ryder Cup teams, Fleetwood has yet to claim a win on the PGA Tour. He holds the record for the golfer who has amassed the most prize money without clinching a PGA title. However, Fleetwood will be hoping for a change in fortune at the St Jude Championship, having ended the opening round in second place on Thursday. He scored seven-under-par, placing him just one shot behind the leader, but will recognise the need for consistency to stay ahead of the competitive field, which includes Scottie Scheffler and Justin Rose. Here is a look at Fleetwood's net worth and life off the golf course. Tommy Fleetwood's net worth Fleetwood has accumulated substantial prize money throughout his career, with his wealth standing at £23.3m ($31.3m), according to the PGA. This year alone, he has pocketed £4.7m ($6.4m) from 16 events, including a £1.31m payday after finishing T2 at the Travelers Championship in June. His income is further supplemented by lucrative endorsement deals with brands such as Nike, Taylormade and Tag Heuer. However, Fleetwood's wife and agent Clare has previously revealed that Fleetwood declines some opportunities to earn extra money. "You know we've turned down loads, absolutely loads because I just know his time," she said on the Performance People podcast in 2023. "I genuinely know that day will be more important to him at home than whatever is being made in the bank account and I don't care about the bank account either as much, so I'm on his wavelength." Article continues below Tommy Fleetwood has enjoyed a successful career despite his wait for a PGA title (Image:) Tommy Fleetwood meeting wife Clare Fleetwood Fleetwood initially met his wife Clare via his brother Joe, as they were colleagues at Hambric Sports Management. The professional golfer became a client in 2015, though Fleetwood shared that he had already established a connection with his future wife. "I get on well with Clare Craig, too, who is vice-president of Europe," he wrote in his Golf Monthly blog in June 2015. She's always been around on Tour, and I've chatted to her a lot over the years." Clare took on the role of being Fleetwood's manager later that year, with a romantic connection blossoming afterwards. The pair wed in 2017. They share one son, Frankie, and two stepsons from Clare's previous relationship. Originally from Southport, Fleetwood relocated his family to Dubai in 2022. Clare Fleetwood considered stepping down as Tommy's manager at the start of their relationship (Image:) Tommy Fleetwood rejected by future wife Tommy and Clare tied the knot two years after they began working together, though she initially turned down Fleetwood's suggestion of starting a romantic relationship. The 56-year-old harboured concerns about the situation, not solely because of their working arrangement. "We've got a 23-year age difference," she told the Performance People podcast. "Of course, I turned him down. I was like, 'Don't be stupid." Describing how he convinced his wife to reconsider, Fleetwood added: "Well, she just eventually gave in, I think, and thought, 'I'll just give him some time. I'll give him the time of day and then we'll go from there.' And then I didn't mess up. " Clare did contemplate stepping down from her position as Fleetwood's manager when their romance started, but both determined it could succeed following a six-month trial period. She outlined how being both Fleetwood's wife and manager gives her a unique viewpoint regarding financial decisions. Article continues below "I know everything on every side – so there's sponsorship side, the logistics side, the PR side, the accounts side, everything," Clare said. "Maybe sometimes too much you know, because then that's all I think about sometimes but that's just the different dynamic. "I look at one question – it might have 15 answers for me. Do you know what I mean? It's a little bit more complicated for me because I see things you know like – are we going to live? I don't see it as a lifestyle choice necessarily, I'll look at it as a business choice as well."
The Guardian
32 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The NHL preached inclusion. So why has it got into bed with Donald Trump?
'Diverse representation within inclusive environments is proven to advance innovation, creativity, and decision-making – all of which are critically important to the growth of the sport and our business,' NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wrote in his introduction to the NHL's first – and only, so far – diversity and inclusion report, which it released in 2022. 'Recognizing these facts, we are working to better understand and accelerate our engagement across all layers of diversity – including nationality, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, and religion – and their nuances and intersections,' Bettman continued. Last week, Bettman was named alongside NHL legend Wayne Gretzky, Florida Panthers' captain Matthew Tkachuk and various representatives of other sports as a member of Donald Trump's sports council. The council will be responsible for – among other things – playing an 'important role in restoring tradition to college athletics, including … keeping men out of women's sports.' Not what you'd call an opportunity for Bettman et al to gain a better understanding of the nuances of gender identity, by the sounds of it. This is not the first time Bettman has given mixed messages around social issues. In 2023, for example, the NHL tried to host a career fair aimed at recruiting a more diverse workforce (its inclusivity report noted that the league's employees were roughly 84% white and 93% straight). The event, attached to that year's All Star Game in Florida, quickly caught the attention of the governor's office, which accused the NHL of discrimination – against white people. The league cancelled the career fair. A few weeks later, the NHL again had the opportunity to stand for its diversity values when a handful of players refused to wear their team's Pride-themed warmup jerseys. Instead, the NHL retreated meekly, encouraging 'voices and perspectives on social and cultural issues.' That June – Pride month, no less – Bettman cancelled the Pride jerseys altogether, calling the furor around them 'a distraction' from the intended message. One wonders what he will call his own foray directly into the culture wars or, for that matter, how the NHL may characterize this particular moment of self-expression from the commissioner. It's likely that Bettman's participation in Trump's sports council will fall into the 'voices and perspectives on social and cultural issues' category the league talked about during the Pride jerseys fiasco. But seeing as Trump seems fixated on getting trans women out of college sports – even though there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes in college sports, according to the president of the NCAA – this feels like a very specific kind of perspective on a cultural issue, doesn't it? What's so aggravating about repeated allowances for anti-LGBTQ+ perspectives from the NHL under the guise of simply letting all opinions flourish equally, is how it pretends that these views are all morally equivalent when they're not. Sure, the players who refused to wear a Pride-themed jersey can't be forced to wear them, but it's not like it was simply a fashion choice. Fundamentally, those players made that decision based on a worldview that refuses to accept LGBTQ+ people, including their fellow hockey players, as being equal to them and everyone else. It's not the jerseys that were the problem – but they did a great job highlighting it. Earlier this spring, Harrison Browne, the first transgender player in professional hockey, wrote that while in the NCAA, he was offered the option to have his own locker room and change his pronouns on the roster. 'Looking back, I realize how important it is for trans and non-binary student athletes to have those options, whether or not they take them,' Browne wrote in The Walrus. 'These choices provide a baseline of institutional acceptance and acknowledgment for gender-diverse athletes at all levels.' On Monday, Browne told the Guardian via email that 'to see [Bettman, Gretzky, and Tkachuk] get behind an administration that is targeting marginalized communities, especially trans people in sports, is deeply disturbing and a huge step backwards in making hockey a more inclusive sport.' And going backwards really isn't Bettman's thing, or it never used to be. When he accepted his job as commissioner in 1992, he told a room full of reporters that 'the way a league performs well is by making its product as attractive as it can to the greatest number of fans.' He believed in growth, in other words – even up until 2022. What he risks now is stagnation, regression even. On that same day in 1992, Bettman said that he wanted to make hockey, a sport that at the time was seen as violent and retrograde, more 'user-friendly.' And he acknowledged that to do it, he'd need to push some of the older owners into the future. 'It may be that we are going to head in new, progressive directions that will make sense to every one immediately,' Bettman said. 'For some, it may take a little more time.' Maybe the diversity and inclusion stuff doesn't totally make sense to Bettman in 2025 – other North American sports have decided that they don't have the stomach to fight the culture wars under Trump either, and NFL commission Roger Goodell is also on the White House sports council. But Bettman should give the league's diversity policies time to grow, rather than deliberately reversing course, hurting hockey's players and fans, and ultimately jeopardising the future success of the sport for everyone. If that's too much to ask, at the very least, if he's invited to join a club created by a hostile and retrograde president, he should by now have the smarts to just say no.
Telegraph
43 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Watch: Olympic gold medallist ‘attacks' sprinter boyfriend at airport
Footage has emerged of Olympic gold medallist sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson allegedly attacking her Christian Coleman boyfriend at an airport. Richardson was detained last week in Seattle and a police report said footage appeared to show Coleman being shoved into a wall before an item was thrown at him. The 25-year-old was released following the incident after her boyfriend 'declined to be a victim,' the police report read. CCTV images, first obtained by TMZ, appear to show Richardson slamming Coleman into a wall and bumping into him after the first altercation. The argument continues as the pair bump into each other as he walks towards a checkpoint at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Port of Seattle Police said Richardson claimed the argument was started over a pair of headphones. 'Richardson advised she did not assault him in any way and the dispute was only a verbal argument,' police documents said. The 2024 silver medallist in the 100m and a gold medal winner in the 4x100m relay was arrested and charged with fourth-degree assault before she was released without further action. Coleman later said: 'For me personally, I feel like it was a sucky situation all round. I don't feel like she should have been arrested. 'I'm the type of guy who's in the business of extending grace, and mercy and love. She's just had a lot of things going on, lot of emotions and forces going on inside of her that not only I can't understand, but nobody can. 'She's one-of-one. I know it's been a tough journey for her this year. But she's gonna bounce back because she's the best female athlete in the world. I see it every day. She's gonna be just fine. She's gonna be good, and I'm gonna be good too.' Richardson will run in the 100m at the World Championships next month but missed out on qualifying for the 200m by one-hundredth of a second. She finished fourth in her heat in Oregon last week and declined to speak to reporters afterwards.
