Two weeks after claiming his first PGA Tour Champions major title, Stewart Cink has put himself into position to collect his second.

Cink, 52, fired a 7-under-par 65 on Friday at Greystone Golf and Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., to take a two-shot lead over Charlie Wi halfway through the 72-hole Regions Tradition.

Cink sits at 14-under 130, which puts him three ahead of South Africa’s Retief Goosen, Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee and Czechia’s Alex Cejka and five beyond New Zealand’s Steven Alker.

For the second day in a row, Cink stacked eight birdies versus one bogey.

“I made a long putt on 17,” Cink said. “Had a couple two-putt birdies, a couple pretty simple up-and-downs. It was really nothing for the history books, it was just some good play. The golf course is really receiving the ball really well. You know, the greens are soft, but they’re not spinning back that much so it’s really, it’s very scorable out there.”

Cink, who grew up 120 miles northwest of Birmingham in Florence, Ala., will have a bigger gallery following him this weekend because he’s so close to home.

“And it has nothing to do with being on top of the leaderboard,” Cink said. “They were already coming, so I’m glad they’re going to be here. I’m going to have some of my north and central Alabaman friends and family here the rest of the weekend, so that will be great to see them and hopefully give them something to cheer about.”

Goosen joined Cink and Ken Tanigawa as the only players in the 77-man field to deliver a 65 on Friday. Goosen, though, wasn’t satisfied with his performance.

“If you can drive it well on this course, you’re going to have a lot of short irons in,” Goosen said. “The greens at the moment are just perfect, but today I missed a lot of fairways in — a couple of really wild ones. Going to go hit a few now and try and see if I can smooth it out.”

Wi enjoyed a spectacular start on his way to a second consecutive 66. He opened his round on the back nine and began with five consecutive birdies, which the 54-year-old believed to be a first in his career.

“‘ve been hitting my irons really well,” Wi said. “I’ve been hitting them pretty close, so I (gave) myself a lot of opportunities, and I was able to make a couple putts.”

–Field Level Media

McLaren’s Lando Norris beat out Mercedes’ young star and Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli for pole position in spring qualifying Friday at the Miami Grand Prix.

Norris emerged from a one-lap shootout in SQ3 0.222 seconds better than Antonelli, with McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in third, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc fourth and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen fifth.

The Brit earned McLaren’s first P1 of the young season with his SQ3 time of 1:27.869.

“It was great, a perfect result for us,” Norris said, per Formula1.com. “A nice way to reward the team. We’ve got a lot of new upgrades on the car, so it’s nice to feel some grip again and nice to reward the guys and the girls that have put a lot of work into this. I’ve always loved Miami, both on and off the track. It’s a good result for us. Of course, it’s just the beginning of the weekend, still a long way to go but nice to kick it off by doing this.”

Norris is the reigning F1 World Drivers’ champion and won seven Grand Prix last year; he also earned his first F1 victory at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix. Meanwhile, the 19-year-old Italian Antonelli has won each of the last two F1 stops, the Chinese and Japanese Grand Prix, starting from the pole each time.

Next comes the Sprint on Saturday at noon. The Miami Grand Prix is slated for Sunday afternoon.

–Field Level Media

Lionel Messi and Inter Miami make a fourth attempt at earning their first win in their new stadium on Saturday night when they welcome an Orlando City squad managing an unusually busy recent schedule.

The Herons (5-1-4, 19 points) earned consecutive away wins in their first two matches following the resignation of manager Javier Mascherano in early April and the takeover of Guillermo Hoyos on an interim basis.

But they settled for a 1-1 home draw to New England on Saturday, which marked the third time in as many matches at the freshly unveiled Nu Stadium that honors have finished even.

Versatile defensive midfielder Facundo Mura thinks there have been noticeable, positive changes under Hoyos, who previously was serving as the club’s sporting director.

“Even though we couldn’t win in the last round, we’ve taken seven of the last nine points, and we feel we’ve improved, especially mentally,” Mura said. “So I think we’ll arrive in good shape for the next game.”

Messi has not added to his team-best total of seven goals in Miami’s last two league matches. But he and his teammates have enjoyed a full week to train under Hoyos after navigating a stretch of three games in eight days following the managerial switch.

Messi scored two goals when Inter Miami won 4-2 at Orlando City on March 1. He has eight goals in five meetings against the Lions across all competitions.

Meanwhile, Orlando (2-7-1, 7 points) will play for a second time in about 72 hours and a seventh time in 21 days while managing a run to the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals.

Learning how to balance his players’ workloads has been on-the-job learning for interim manager Martin Perelman, who took over for Oscar Pareja following a three-match losing streak to start the season.

Complicating the equation is a lengthy injury list that includes key attackers Duncan McGuire and Marco Pasalic, who missed last weekend’s 3-2 league loss at D.C. United and Wednesday’s 4-3 Cup triumph over the New England Revolution.

“It’s not an easy task, especially because now we are recovering some of our guys,” Perelman said. “But we’ve had a lot of injuries, so that makes more difficult the task of (monitoring) loads. But the players are responding. They are doing a huge effort, an amazing effort.”

–Field Level Media