GOLF
Webb Simpson birdied the final two holes of regulation to force a playoff with Tony Finau, then won the Waste Management Phoenix Open with a 10-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole Sunday at Scottsdale, Arizona.
Finau, two strokes ahead with two holes left, missed an 18-foot birdie try in the playoff on the par-4 18th after driving left into the church pew bunkers.
Simpson two-putted for birdie from the fringe on the short par-4 17th and made a 17-footer for birdie from the edge of the green on the 18th.
Finau, after hitting a 366-yard drive and an approach to 8 feet, missed a chance to win when his birdie try slid right.
Simpson closed with a 2-under 69 to match Finau at 17-under 267 at TPC Scottsdale. Finau shot 70.
The 34-year-old Simpson won his sixth PGA Tour title and first since the 2018 Players Championship.
EUROPEAN: Graeme McDowell shot a steady even-par 70 to win the Saudi International by two strokes for his first title since 2014.
McDowell, the 2010 U.S. Open winner at windy Pebble Beach, protected his lead on a breezy afternoon by the Red Sea to card a 12-under 268 total, holding off late pressure by defending champion Dustin Johnson.
Johnson made an eagle on the par-5 18th by chipping in over a bunker for a 3-under 67 as McDowell saved par on No. 17.
McDowell sank his 5-footer to par the 18th and secure his 16th professional win, in a 13th different country.
A first title on McDowell’s home tour since the 2014 French Open lifted him back into a top-50 world ranking, and earned a winner’s check of $583,000.
LUGE
WORLD CUP: Summer Britcher won a pair of medals, a decidedly up-and-down day of racing for USA Luge at Oberhof, Germany.
Britcher was third in the women’s race and joined Tucker West and the doubles team of Chris Mazdzer and Jayson Terdiman to win silver in the team relay. Britcher has five medals this season. West won his third, and Mazdzer and Terdiman reached the podium for the first time.
But the Americans finished the day without Emily Sweeney, who pulled out of the women’s race after one run after apparently re-aggravating a neck injury that forced her to miss some time earlier this season.
BOBSLED
WORLD CUP: Germany’s Francesco Friedrich won the four-man bobsled overall championship, and Canada’s Justin Kripps got the victory in the final four-man race in the series this season at St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Friedrich won the four-man title for the second consecutive year, clinching the championship despite finishing a season-worst fifth in the finale.
Kripps got his third four-man win of the season.
SKIING
WOMEN’S WORLD CUP: Federica Brignone won a super-G after overall leader Mikaela Shiffrin sat out the race at Rosa Khutor, Russia, strengthening her runner-up position in the standings.
The win left her 270 points short of Shiffrin’s leading tally.
Shiffrin, the American three-time overall champion, decided to skip the races in the 2014 Olympic resort after winning the previous super-G and a downhill in Bulgaria a week ago.
With cloudy weather affecting visibility, Brignone overcame a mistake halfway down the course when she caught a bump and lost half a second.
She quickly rediscovered the ideal race line and won by 0.20 seconds ahead of her Italian teammate Sofia Goggia, who returned after missing the last two races with a right leg injury following a downhill crash.
MEN’S WORLD CUP: Alexis Pinturault became the first skier this season to win two giant slaloms, triumphing on the Kandahar 2 course at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, to end a series of disappointing results in his strongest discipline.
Pinturault won the season opener in October but placed 17th, eighth and 10th in the next three GS events.
On Sunday, he was 0.18 seconds off the lead in fourth before posting the third-fastest time in the second run and beat first-run leader Loic Meillard by 0.16. The Swiss skier matched his career best result by finishing second.
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