THACKERVILLE, Okla. (AP) Justin James won the Volvik World Long Drive Championship on Wednesday night, beating Canadian Mitch Grassing in the final round at WinStar World Casino and Resort.

After Grassing failed to find the grid on all eight of attempts in the two-round final, James – needing only to put one of his last four balls on the grid at the minimum 270 yards – hit a 435-yarder on his first shot in the second round to take the $125,000 top prize.

The 27-year-old James, from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, beat Paul Howell of Wilson, North Carolina, in the quarterfinals at 434 yards, and topped Kyle Berkshire of Crofton, Maryland, in the semifinals at 437 yards.

Grassing, from Ottawa, Ontario, beat Wes Patterson of St. Louis, in the quarterfinals at 435 yards, and edged Kyle Berkshire of Orlando, Florida, in the semifinals at 437 yards.

Sandra Carlborg won her fifth women’s title, beating Heather Lynne Manfredda with a 320-yard drive. The 33-year-old Swede also won in 2011, ..

Michelle Wie has withdrawn from The Evian Championship as she recovers from surgery to remove her appendix.

The 27-year-old Wie withdrew from the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open at Ottawa Hunt before the final round Aug. 27 and had the surgery that night at Ottawa Hospital. The Evian Championship, the final major of the LPGA Tour season, begins Sept. 14 in France.

”Unfortunately my doctors have advised me to continue resting which means I have to withdraw from (at)evianchamp next week,” Wie said Wednesday on social media. ”It breaks my heart to do so because there is nothing more I want right now than to be able to compete.

”I love the Evian Championship and it holds a special place in my heart. I grew up playing this championship and I can’t wait to get back next year. As soon as the docs say I’m fully recovered, I will be back practicing and playing, but for now I’m going to listen to them and lay low.”

World No. 2 Lexi Thompson, last week’s winner Stacy Lewis and former top-ranked player Lydia Ko of New Zealand highlight the field this week in the inaugural Indy Women in Tech Championship in Speedway, Ind.

The tournament is being contested from Thursday through Saturday.

A total roster of 144 players from 26 different countries will play 54 holes of stroke play golf at the quirky but fabulous Brickyard Crossing Golf Club, which was designed by Indiana native Pete Dye. The course has four holes — a par 3 and three par 4s — that are routed inside the infield of the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500.

The field will play for a total purse of $2 million, with $300,000 and 500 Race to the CME Globe points going to the player who can best solve Dye’s 6,599-yard, par-72 track. The holes inside the infield, which are normally Nos. 7-10, will make up the closing stretch in this event.

This is the LPGA Tour’s first event in Indiana since the ninth Solheim C..

Everyone knows you don't walk away from the craps table when you're on a heater, so using that same logic, you shouldn't take a break from the course when you're finally playing good golf. And European Tour pro Lee Slattery stuck to that thinking this week — even with his wife due to have their second child.
After finishing runner-up at last week's Czech Masters, the England-based player who had finished T-9 and T-19 in his previous two starts after a rough start to the year traveled to Switzerland for the Omega European Masters. But two nights before the tournament started, Slattery's wife, Faye, had a little girl. Thanks to technology, Slattery was at least able to watch the delivery on his phone via Facetime.
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Here's how Slattery, a two-time European Tour winner, explained his decision to play this week:
“I had two weeks off recently to spend time with her thinking she ..

Report: Dozens of lobbyists/corporate executives with government dealings are members at Trump golf courses

August 17 was a picture-perfect day at Eagle Ridge Golf Club in Lakewood Township, N.J.—just the right setting for the 11th playing of Cleveland Cavaliers shooting guard J.R. Smith's Annual Charity Golf Classic.

The Star Wars franchise lost another director this week — its third in the last four months — with the abrupt announcement that Lucasfilm had fired Colin Trevorrow, who was announced back in 2015 as the director of Episode IX and has been working on a script treatment since. With yesterday’s tersely worded announcement on StarWars.com, Trevorrow takes a seat on the bench next to Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were themselves canned as directors of the as-yet-untitled Han Solo movie a full four months into production and replaced by your reliable movie-making dad Ron Howard, who’s been recording over their footage since.
In golf terms, this is like shooting par for 16 holes, then walking onto the tee at 17, lighting your clubs on fire, selecting a new caddy, driving to an entirely different golf club and beginning to play soccer. It’s weird, it guarantees most of the Han Solo movie is hot wacky garbage and it makes those of us on planet nerd scream IT’S A STAR WARS MOVIE, HOW HARD IS T..