The first round of the U.S. Open golf tournament is in the books in North Carolina, at Pinehurst No. 2. Patrick Cantlay is tied with Rory McIlroy at five-under par. I will be surprised if the winning score is in double digits under par because the course is very difficult, especially the greens. They are very unique flying saucer circle-type greens.
If you add up all of the USGA championships from 1895 to the present, this is the 1,000th championship in its history, which is pretty cool.
Patrick Cantley is actually good friends with Xander Schauffele who just won the the PGA Championship, so Patrick is getting some motivation from him as well. Tiger Woods had a good start to his first round, but struggled on the back nine and shot a four-over par 74. He has a lot of work to do to make the cut.
I am surprised to report that the NBA Finals has not been as competitive as everybody would have liked them to be. The Boston Celtics are up 3-0 in the best of seven series over the Dallas Mavericks. Considering the number of points scored by most NBA games this season, this has been a low-scoring finals. The most points the Celtics have scored so far has been 107. I always thought that the Celtics were favorites from the beginning of the season to win the championship because of how deep they were, but after the Mavericks beat Minnesota in the conference finals, the media said there was hope for Dallas winning the championship. In the history of the NBA, no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the finals. I don’t expect this to happen this time either.
In the French Open tennis tournament, the favorites won their respective championships. Carlos Alcaraz won his second French Open in a five match over Alexander Zverev from Germany. I think Alexander was extremely tired after winning the third set because Alvarez won the last two sets surprisingly easily to come back. He is only 21 and is in great shape, so if he doesn’t get hurt, I think he’s going to win lots of majors in his career.
On the women’s side, Iga Swiatek of Poland won very easily 6-2, 6-1 over Jasmine Paolini of Italy. Iga has already won three French Open titles and she is only 23. She has struggled so far in her career at Wimbledon on the grass, so we will see what happens with that.
The Phillies won one game in their London series against the New York Mets, but the bigger issue is the health of their longtime catcher JT Realmuto. He is out for at least a month with a knee injury. This news was very disappointing, but not unexpected because of the amount of games he has played in the last five years for the Phillies. He is definitely an iron man. The backup catcher, Garrett Stubbs, is going to have to step up big time to fill his shoes. I don’t think the Phillies will trade for another catcher because of the fact that they have a 10-game lead over the Atlanta Braves who are struggling day by day.
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A 2002 Cape grad and 2007 UD grad, Lewes resident Sumner Spence is one of the Cape area's biggest sports fans. Although he’s used a wheelchair his entire life, he has lived vicariously through his sports-playing father, brother, and friends, who gave him his love of sports. He hopes to provide new and interesting perspectives on the sports stories and issues of the day. Email Sumner at sumspence@gmail.com.
