Sports Briefs September 6, 2011
Golf
Webb Simpson finished off an amazing comeback with three clutch birdies, the final one on the second extra playoff hole Monday in the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass., for his second win in three weeks.
On a day filled with big crowds and big moments appropriate to the FedEx Cup playoffs, Simpson delivered a stunning conclusion on the TPC Boston.
He looked as if he would be the runner-up until knocking in a 30-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th hole for a 6-under 65. That put him into a playoff when Chez Reavie, who had birdied the toughest holes on the back nine, made bogey on the easiest hole on the course at No. 18 for a 66. The finished regulation at 15-under 269.
On the 18th hole in the playoff, Simpson again looked to be out of luck when Reavie chipped to tap-in range for birdie. But Simpson rolled in a 15-foot putt to keep the playoff going, and then won with an 8-foot putt on the 17th hole.
Simpson won his first PGA Tour title three weeks ago at the Wyndham Championship, putting him in good shape for the FedEx Cup playoffs and the chase for a $10 million prize.
Football
Not even cancer surgery can keep former NFL coach Buddy Ryan from being in the stands when his twin sons coach against each other Sunday night in the prime-time opener between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Jets.
Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan said his dad was diagnosed last week with a form of cancer "in his gland that's right through his neck." Brother Rex, the Jets coach, said through a team spokesman that it was the parotid gland, the largest of the salivary glands.
Having already beaten melanoma in 1968 and '80, and another form of the disease earlier this year, the 80-year-old Ryan said this was "less serious" except that "whenever you go under anesthesia, you never know what's going to happen."
Baseball
Stephen Strasburg makes his Washington Nationals return tonight - weather permitting.
The 23-year-old right-hander is set to make his first major league start since having Tommy John surgery a year ago.
However, the forecast calls for a 90 percent chance of rain as the Nationals host the Los Angeles Dodgers at 4 p.m. PDT.
Whenever it happens, Strasburg's comeback is another sign of how the remarkable has become the routine, that a doctor can take a tendon from a pitcher's thigh and use it to replace a damaged ligament in the elbow of the throwing arm.
Strasburg made six rehab starts in the minors. He had 29 strikeouts, three walks and a 3.54 ERA over 20 1/3 innings.
College
Tennessee hired Alabama's Dave Hart as its vice chancellor and athletic director.
The university held a news conference to introduce Hart, who has worked since August 2008 as executive director of athletics assisting Alabama athletic director Mal Moore.
Tennessee had been looking for a new athletic director since Mike Hamilton resigned in June in the wake of a lengthy NCAA investigation into the Volunteers basketball and football programs that resulted in a self-imposed two-year probation for the athletics department.
Soccer
Former Brazil captain Socrates is back in a hospital intensive care unit because of a stomach hemorrhage.
It is the same problem that kept him hospitalized for more than a week less than 10 days ago.
After leaving the hospital last month, the 57-year-old Socrates publicly admitted he was a heavy drinker but pledged he would completely stop drinking.
- The Associated Press