Two of the biggest names from the PGA Tour and the NFL proved to be must-see TV. Turner Sports said the Sunday telecast of The Match: Champions for Charity attracted an average of 5.8 million viewers across four of its networks — TNT, TBS, truTV and HLN. Turner says it was the most-watched golf telecast in cable TV history. It said the previous record was 4.9 million viewers on ESPN at the 2010 Masters, the year Tiger Woods returned to golf for the first time since the scandal in his personal life. Woods and Peyton Manning scored a 1-up victory over Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady at Medalist Golf Club, a match that featured high entertainment with shots and with words, along with raising $20 million for COVID-19 relief funds. The peak was 6.3 million average viewers from 5:45 to 6 p.m. EDT. That was about the time Brady, who had been lampooned on social media for his golf skills, silenced analyst Charles Barkley by holing out from the fairway for birdie. It was the second straight Sunday of live golf on television after the pandemic shut down the sport on March 13. The previous week, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson defeated Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff at Seminole in an exhibition that NBC Sports said attracted 2.35 million viewers across all formats. The PGA Tour is set to return in two weeks at Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas, for the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Auto racing
NASCAR bans three Hamlin crew members
NASCAR suspended three critical crew members for Denny Hamlin’s race team — crew chief Chris Gabehart, car chief Brandon Griffeth and engineer Scott Simmons — after a piece of tungsten fell off Hamlin’s car on the pace lap before Sunday night’s the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The tungsten is required to meet minimum weight requirements on the car and the NASCAR rule book states if it is separated at any point it is an automatic four-race suspension for the crew chief, car chief and engineer.The piece of ballast added to the car weighs 35 pounds and costs $1,877 from the supplier. It fell off the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota before the start of Sunday’s race and Hamlin went to pit road for additional weight to be added back to the car. He didn’t join the race until eight laps had been completed. Joe Gibbs Racing said it would not appeal the penalty and already had roster replacements for Wednesday night’s race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Sam McAulay will be the crew chief, while Eric Phillips will be car chief and Scott Eldridge the engineer. NASCAR’s next four races are at Charlotte, Bristol, Atlanta and Martinsville between Wednesday night and June 10, when the suspension ends.
Advertisement
Miscellany
Veteran pitcher Colón: ‘I’m not retired’
Bartolo Colón refuses to entertain the idea of retirement. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t pitch in 2019 and that on Sunday he turned 47. He craves one more shot in the majors. “I’m not retired. That’s not in my mind,” Colón told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “I’m still hoping of reaching my goal of pitching 46 innings.” That’s the number of innings that will propel Colón past Hall of Famer Juan Marichal for the most by a Dominican pitcher. In his last big league season, with the Texas Rangers in 2018, Colón managed to reach 3,461⅔ innings. He is 247-188 in 565 games — 552 as a starter since his debut with Cleveland in 1997. Marichal managed to pitch 3,507 innings in 471 games over 16 years. Atlético Madrid said forward João Félix sprained his left knee. The clubs said tests showed the Portuguese forward “suffered a low grade” ligament sprain and his return to training will depend on how he responds to treatment. . . Oswaldo Alvarez, who coached Brazil at the last two Women’s World Cups, died in a Sao Paulo hospital on Monday. He was 63. Alvarez recently said he was getting treatment for liver cancer. The Brazil confederation paid tribute to Vadão, as Brazilians knew him, as “a loyal professional who never fell short in his work and brought fundamental results” for the national women’s team. At the Women’s World Cups, Brazil twice fell in the round of 16: versus Australia in 2015 and France in 2019. Vadão was fired after that loss last July.
Advertisement