Golf Capsules
ATLANTA (AP) - Dustin Johnson was in trouble from the start Thursday, just not for very long. The game feels easy for the U.S. Open champion, who began his bid for the FedEx Cup title on Thursday with a 4-under 66 to share the lead at the Tour Championship.
Johnson had 165 yards from the sand and worried about getting it over the lip of the bunker. He hit 8-iron to 2 feet for birdie and was on his way to his sixth consecutive round at 68 or lower.
Hideki Matsuyama of Japan ran off three straight birdies early in his round and finished with a birdie on the par-5 18th - the nines have been switched at East Lake - for a 66, while Kevin Chappell joined them with a bogey-free round.
Johnson is coming off his third victory of the year at the BMW Championship two weeks ago, and there was no indication that anything has changed. He hit a reasonable amount of fairways (eight out of 14) considering the dry, fast conditions, and only once when he was out of position did he fail to save par.
He is the No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup, and the top five seeds only have to win the Tour Championship to claim the $10 million FedEx Cup bonus. The top five were all among the dozen players who broke par in the opening round.
Jason Day, the world's No. 1 player who hasn't won in four months, dropped his only shot on the opening hole and was at 67, along with Kevin Kisner and Si Woo Kim.
Jordan Spieth didn't look like he would post anything near a 68 after he was 3 over through two holes. The defending FedEx Cup champion let his short game bail him out in a big way. Spieth holed three straight putts from the 30-foot range - one of them for par - and raced back into the mix on the back nine by holing a bunker shot for birdie right of the 13th green and finishing with a pair of 20-foot birdies.
Rory McIlroy also shot 68. Phil Mickelson had a 74.
NATIONWIDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL CHAMPIONSHIP
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - South Korea's Whee Kim shot a 6-under 65 to take the first-round lead in the Web.com Tour Finals' Nationwide Children's Hospital Championship.
Kim had seven birdies and a bogey on Ohio State's Scarlet Course in the third of four events that will determine 25 PGA Tour cards. Kim is 35th on the series money list with $9,975 in two events after finishing 127th in the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup standings.
Kevin Tway and Spain's Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano shot 66. Fernandez-Castano is eighth on the money list with $41,500, likely enough to secure a PGA Tour card. Tway is tied for 52nd with $5,975.
The series features the top 75 players - Tway was 27th, and Fernandez-Castano 64th - from the Web.com regular-season money list, Nos. 126-200 in the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup standings and non-members with enough PGA Tour money to have placed in the top 200 in the FedEx Cup had they been eligible.
The top 25 on the Web.com regular-season money list earned PGA Tour cards. They are competing against each other for tour priority, with regular-season earnings counting in their totals.
The other players are fighting for 25 cards based on series earnings. Last year, Rob Oppenheim got the last PGA Tour card with $32,206. Bobby Gates was 25th in 2013 at $33,650, and Eric Axley took the last card in 2014 at $36,312.
WORLD AMATEUR TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
RIVIERA MAYA, Mexico (AP) - Cameron Davis and Harrison Endycott each shot 5-under 66 at Iberostar Playa Paraiso to help Australia take an eight-stroke lead in the World Amateur Team Championship.
A stroke behind Scotland after the opening round at Iberostar Playa Paraiso, Australia had a 19-under 267 total - one off the 36-hole record set by the United States in 2012. The best two scores count in the total for the three-man teams, with U.S. Amateur champion Curtis Luck again lagging behind his teammates with a 71.
Davis topped the individual standings at 10-under 133, a stroke ahead of Endycott and two in front of Poland's Adrian Meronk (69).
Australia matched the best second-round total in event history at 10-under 132. It won the Eisenhower Trophy in 1958, 1966 and 1996.
The two-time defending champion United States was second. Stanford's Maverick McNealy and Texas' Scottie Scheffler shot 69 at Mayakoba El Camaleon, and Oklahoma's Brad Dalke had a non-counting 72.
Switzerland was third at 10 under.
U.S. SENIOR WOMEN'S AMATEUR
WELLESLEY, Mass. (AP) - Ellen Port won her third U.S. Senior Women's Amateur title and seventh USGA championship, beating Andrea Kraus 3 and 2 at Wellesley Country Club.
The 55-year-old Port, from St. Louis, also won the event for players 50-and-over in 2012 and 2013 and the U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur in 1995, 1996, 2000 and 2011. With seven USGA women's titles, she's tied for second place with Carol Semple Thompson and Anne Quast Sander, one behind JoAnne Gunderson Carner.
Port was 2-under par for 16 holes, with the usual match-play concessions.
The 55-year-old Kraus is from Baltimore.
In addition to Carner, only Bobby Jones and Tiger Woods with nine, and Jack Nicklaus with eight have won more USGA championships than Port. Port's 7-1 record is the best among female players who have reached six or more USGA finals. Thompson is 7-3, Glenna Collett Vare 6-2, and Carner 6-3.
Port is the women's golf coach at Washington University in St. Louis. She also teaches at the John Burroughs School, a private high school.
U.S. SENIOR AMATEUR
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Dave Ryan won the U.S. Senior Amateur for his first USGA championship, holding off Matthew Sughrue 2 up at Old Warson Country Club.
The 62-year-old Ryan, from Taylorville, Illinois, won the Illinois Senior Amateur by nine strokes last week. He beat two-time Senior Amateur champion Paul Simson in the round of 16 and two-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Tim Jackson in the semifinals. Against Simson, Ryan had the third known hole-in-one on a par-4 hole in a USGA championship, acing the 270-yard 14th.
The 57-year-old Sughrue is from Arlington, Virginia.
Sughrue won the opening hole, and Ryan took the next five. Sughrue rallied to tie, pulling even with a par win on the par-4 15th. Ryan won the 621-yard, par-5 16th with a par. Sughrue missed the green left and down a ridge and his 15-footer for a halve lipped out lipped out. They halved the par-3 17th with pars, and Ryan ended the match with a conceded par on the par-4 18th.
EUROPEAN OPEN
BAD GRIESBACH, Germany (AP) - Austria's Bernd Wiesberger had an eagle and nine birdies in an 8-under 63 to top the European Open leaderboard in the suspended first round.
Play started 3 hours, 25 minutes late because of fog, with many players unable to finish before dark.
Italy's Renato Paratore had a 64, and American Daniel Im, England's Steve Webster, Sweden's Michael Jonzon and Denmark's Lucas Bjerregaard shot 65. England's Matthew Southgate also was 5 under through 11 holes.