Sports
U.S. beats International team to win 10th straight Presidents Cup
Sep 29, 2024; Ile Bizard, Quebec, CAN; Xander Schauffele of team U.S.A. reacts after putting on the green of the first hole in singles match during the final round of The Presidents Cup golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-Imagn Images The United States continued its historical dominance of the Presidents Cup when it beat the International team 18 1/2 to 11 1/2 at Royal Montreal Golf Club on Sunday for its 10th consecutive victory in the event.
Needing to pick up only 4 1/2 points from the 12 singles matches on the final day, the U.S. won six and halved three others.
The result was never really in doubt after American star Xander Schauffele posted an emphatic 4-and-3 victory over Australian Jason Day in the opening contest.
“My goal was just to set the tone, get (American) red up on that board as early as possible and I was able to do that,” Schauffele told NBC after ending the week with a 4-1-0 record in a continuation of a stellar year in which he won two major championships.
Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa also went 4-1-0 for the U.S., while South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout (2-1-0) was the only International with a winning record.
The U.S. has now won 13 times in the 15 playings of the Cup since its inception in 1994. The lone International victory came in Australia in 1998, while the 2003 event in South Africa was tied.
Keegan Bradley made U.S. victory mathematically certain when he outlasted South Korean Si Woo Kim 1 up in the sixth match.
“I’m so proud of the team and proud of being here,” said Bradley, who will captain the U.S. team against Europe in next year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.
“We’re going to copy a lot of what (captain) Jim Furyk did this week. He set a culture here for us, and we’re going to carry that over into Bethpage, and I hope a lot of these 12 are on that team.”
Furyk was delighted at the poise his players showed late in matches.
“These players were amazing,” Furyk said. “I had great leadership at the top. They made the captain’s job really easy, and these guys played their hearts out this week.
“We talked about being a dog all week, being the tougher team. Those back nine holes, if you look at how many holes won and lost, I’ve got to feel we owned the back nine this week and that was the difference.”
The U.S. started the week by far the stronger team on paper, with all 12 players ranked among the top 25 in the world, compared with only four of the International team.
Australian Adam Scott (2-3-0) performed reasonably on a personal level, but that was scant consolation as he played on his 10th losing team in a row.
And Mike Weir of Canada joined a long list of losing International captains.
“A lot of these matches were so close. It’s disappointing not to get a win. We put our team together to win this thing,” Weir said.
“I’m going to be thinking about things I could have done differently. I think that’s human nature when you don’t win … I’ll have plenty of time to do that after.”
–Field Level Media
Sports
Record 216 WNBA games to be broadcast nationally this season
Aug 31, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; A Wilson EVO Nxt WNBA basketball on the court at the Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images A record 216 WNBA games and tentpole events for the upcoming 2026 season will be broadcast on national television.
The league announced its full slate of nationally televised games for the first year of its new media rights deal on Wednesday. It includes games being broadcast by returning partners in the Walt Disney Company (ABC/ESPN), Amazon Prime Video, CBS/Paramount+ and Scripps (ION).
New television/streaming partners for the 2026 season are NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock/NBCSN) and USA Network.
With two new expansion teams starting play in the upcoming season, the league will put on a record 330 regular-season games, with all 15 teams playing 44 games.
Disney will distribute 30 games this year for the league’s milestone 30th season. ABC will broadcast 13 of those — tied for its most ever — including a season-opening doubleheader May 9 which will see the Indiana Fever face the Dallas Wings and the defending champion Las Vegas Aces face the Phoenix Mercury in a rematch of last year’s WNBA Finals.
Amazon Prime will also broadcast 30 regular-season games for 30 years of the league’s existence, along with the championship game of the Commissioner’s Cup tournament.
NBC, which broadcast the first WNBA game in 1997, is back as a media partner this season and will broadcast seven Sunday games throughout the season. Peacock, in addition to streaming regular-season games, will stream every WNBA Finals game, which will also be broadcast on either NBC or USA.
USA will broadcast 48 regular-season games, trailing only ION, which will broadcast 50 games through its “State Farm WNBA Friday Night Spotlight” series.
After broadcasting the first primetime broadcast television WNBA game last season, CBS will air eight primetime games this season.
NBA TV, which is in its 24th year distributing WNBA games, has a 15-game slate it will be broadcasting.
WNBA League Pass will deliver select live games throughout the season (local blackouts may apply), along with next-day access to every matchup through the WNBA app or at WNBA.com.
–Field Level Media
Sports
LPGA stars get another shot at major title at Chevron
Nov 13, 2025; Belleair, Florida, USA; Nelly Korda hits a shot on the ninth hole during the first round of The ANNIKA golf tournament at Pelican Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images The top five players in the women’s golf world rankings have something in common. All five have won at least one tournament since the 2026 season began, whether on the LPGA Tour or elsewhere.
Actually, that quintet of Jeeno Thitikul, Nelly Korda, Hyo-joo Kim, Charley Hull and Hannah Green shares another attribute: They’ve collected zero of the sport’s last nine major championships.
As major season kicks off at the Chevron Championship on Thursday in Houston, the world of women’s golf waits to see if one of its star players can reassert her dominance under the brightest lights the sport has to offer.
Four of the five major winners in 2025 were first-time champions, including Mao Saigo of Japan, who birdied the first hole of an unprecedented five-way playoff (featuring Kim, among others) to win the Chevron.
That was the event’s final year at the widely-panned Club at Carlton Woods in the Houston suburbs. Formerly played in the Coachella Valley and known as the Dinah Shore, Kraft Nabisco Championship and other titles, the Chevron will make a new home at Memorial Park Golf Course.
The municipal course near downtown Houston is the current home of the PGA Tour’s Houston Open, renovated less than 10 years ago with consulting from Brooks Koepka. It will play as a par-72, 6,811-yard course for the ladies this week.
“It’s definitely a second-shot golf course,” Korda said. “Greens are pretty tricked out. Just depends on how it’s going to play with all the rain that they got. It can play really long where (drives are) not going to go run out or play really soft.”
Korda is the most recent major winner of the world’s top five, having taken the Chevron crown in 2024. But in nine major starts since, she has mixed two T2s with two missed cuts and an array of also-ran finishes.
She began 2026 with a win at the season-opening Tournament of Champions, weather-shortened from 72 to 54 holes. World No. 1Thitikul won the next event in her native Thailand.
Though only 23, Thitikul has been gunning for her first major for close to five years, collecting nine top-10s without a victory.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Thitikul said. “If you in contention, if you without a win as well but you in contention for like maybe four, five week in a row, which mean your game is there. …
“If you were in contention every week, you saw your name on the top in every week, which mean your game is there and then just matter of time.”
England’s Hull has yet to capture a major, while Kim, a South Korean veteran who won back-to-back tournaments in March, hasn’t added to her major mantle since the 2014 Evian.
Green will be a popular pick this week as the Australian rides white-hot form into Houston. She’s won four tournaments since March 1, including a two-week sweep of the Women’s Australian Open and Australian WPGA Championship. On Sunday outside Los Angeles, Green putted her way into a playoff and then won her third LA Championship.
She said Tuesday that she plans to “ride this wave for as long as possible.”
“My putter has been very kind to me, so it’s nice to feel like all aspects of my game have actually been able to turn on at the same time, as to where last year I felt like one thing would go well and something would be really off,” Green said.
“That’s probably been the biggest difference, but obviously the inner belief has definitely been different, too.”
Green’s lone major title came when she won the 2019 Women’s PGA Championship.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Nick Martinez helps Rays dispatch Reds, his former team
Apr 22, 2026; St. Petersburg, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero (13) celebrates with Tampa Bay Rays third base coach Brady Williams (4) after hitting a home run during the third inning against the Cincinnati Reds at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Mike Watters-Imagn Images Nick Martinez allowed a run on five hits over eight innings and Junior Caminero homered to lead the Tampa Bay Rays to a 6-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday afternoon at St. Petersburg, Fla.
Martinez (1-1) walked one and struck out five against his former team. He threw 71 strikes in 95 pitches.
The Rays averted a sweep in the three-game series and won for only the second time in six games. Caminero drove in two runs, Yandy Diaz was 3-for-4 with a run and an RBI while Ryan Vilade was 2-for-2, scored a run, drove in a run and walked.
The Reds had their five-game winning streak snapped.
Both teams are off Thursday.
Cincinnati starter Brandon Williamson (2-2) gave up five runs on seven hits in 4 1/3 innings with three walks and three strikeouts.
The Rays capitalized on Williamson’s walks to the first two batters in the second by scoring three runs and sending eight batters to the plate. Ben Williamson singled in a run, Chandler Crawford brought in the second tally with a sacrifice fly and Diaz produced an RBI single.
Tampa Bay centerfielder Jonny Deluca ended the top of the third by leaping against the fence to haul in T.J. Friedl’s drive.
Caminero’s home run leading off the bottom of the third made it 4-0. He drove a 1-1 pitch to the opposite field, into the right-center-field stands an estimated 404 feet for Caminero’s sixth homer.
The Reds only managed a run in the fifth after loading the bases with none out. P.J. Higgins’ sacrifice fly made it 4-1. Friedl then bounced into a fielder’s choice as Spencer Steer was tagged out at home. Martinez then got Matt McLain on a flyout to end the half inning.
Vilade’s run-scoring in the fifth made it 5-1.
Friedl, playing center field, made a diving catch on Nick Fortes’ drive to right-center to end the sixth inning.
Caminero’s bases-loaded fielder’s choice in the seventh produced the final margin.
–Field Level Media
