GOLF
Mark Plummer of Augusta Country Club birdied the final two holes Wednesday to overtake first-round leader Gary Manoogian and win the Maine Senior Amateur Championship at York Golf and Tennis Club.
It’s the sixth Senior Amateur title for Plummer, who is also a 13-time Maine Amateur champion. He closed with a 1-under 69 – the only subpar round in the tournament – and finished at 5-over 145.
Plummer trailed Manoogian by five strokes entering the round, but Manoogian, the 2015 Senior Amateur champion, stumbled on the back nine Wednesday, making three bogeys and a double bogey.
A birdie on the final hole left Manoogian, of Falmouth Country Club, one shot behind Plummer.
Defending champion Len Cole of Falmouth Country Club was third, two shots behind Plummer.
PGA: Rory McIlroy was chosen as PGA Tour player of the year, beating out the world’s No. 1 player, Brooks Koepka, in a vote of their fellow players.
McIlroy won three times, including The Players Championship and the Tour Championship to capture the FedEx Cup and its $15 million prize. He also had a tour-best 14 top 10s and finished out of the top 20 only four times in 19 tournaments.
Koepka also won three times, including the PGA Championship, and won the money title by nearly $2 million over McIlroy. He joined Jack Nicklaus (1973), Tiger Woods (2005) and Jordan Spieth (2015) as the only players to finish in the top four in every major in one year.
BASKETBALL
WNBA: Elena Delle Donne of the Washington Mystics was named the Associated Press WNBA player of the year, getting 12 of 14 first-place votes after she helped the Mystics finish with the best record in the league and the top overall seed in the playoffs.
Washington’s Mike Thibault was chosen as coach of the year, and Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx won rookie of the year honors.
OLYMPICS
TOKYO GAMES: South Korea has formally asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the Japanese “rising sun” flag at next year’s Tokyo Games, calling it a symbol of Japan’s brutal wartime past and comparing it with the Nazi swastika.
South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said it sent a letter to IOC President Thomas Bach expressing “deep disappointment and concern” over Japanese plans to allow the flag in stadiums and other facilities during the 2020 Olympics.
The flag, portraying a red sun with 16 rays extending outward, is resented by many South Koreans, who still harbor animosity over Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
SOCCER
U.S. MEN: With both teams missing many of their regular starters, the United States played to a 1-1 draw against fifth-ranked Uruguay in an exhibition Tuesday night in St. Louis.
Jordan Morris scored his first international goal in more than two years in the 79th minute, after Brian Rodriguez put Uruguay ahead in the 50th minute.
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