ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Christina Kim took advantage of favourable conditions Thursday morning, shooting an 8-under 64 to top the leaderboard in the inaugural Volvik Championship.

She didn’t expect to stay there.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if someone gets me by two,” Kim said.

No one did.

Ariya Jutanugarn, coming off consecutive wins on the LPGA Tour, was a shot back after her morning round at Travis Pointe Country Club.

The course conditions got tougher later in the day when the wind picked up and the pins got tougher to shoot for on drying greens.

Minjee Lee, So Yeon Ryu and Marina Alex shot 68, putting them four shots behind Kim.

Samantha Richdale of Kelowna, B.C., shot 69, Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., shot 72 and Hamilton’s Alena Sharp shot 73.

Second-ranked Inbee Park’s lingering thumb injury led her to withdraw from the tournament. Haru Nomura and Perrine Delacour also were unable to complete their first rounds.

Kim ended a 24-round streak in which she didn’t break 70, but wasn’t surprised.

“I’ve been playing really well,” she insisted. “It’s just the scores haven’t reflected how I’ve been playing.”

The three-time LPGA Tour winner, though, was able to withstand her relative slump because of her perspective on the game and life.

“At the end of the day, you know, things will balance out,” Kim said. “We all end up six feet under.”

The 20-year-old Jutanugarn is coming off a victory at the Kingsmill Championship after becoming the first Thai winner in tour history in Alabama.

One of her friends saw this coming.

“She’s been playing like this since she was 17 years old,” Kim said. “I think that for her it was just a matter of breaking the shell and getting over that first hump and getting that first win. She is going to just be an absolute world-beater.”

Kim might be one of the people who paves the way after she was in a rough patch of her career.

“Last year, I played bad,” Jutanugarn recalled. “And, she the only person come and talk to me.”

Jutanugarn played through a stiffer wind on her back nine, competing well enough to give herself a chance to possibly win three straight tournaments.

Her ability to play without a driver in her bag or a 3-wood in her hand may help her make the most of opportunities on a layup set up to give players success.

“The course pretty firm so I not even need to hit 3-wood,” Jutanugarn said. “Two-iron fine because I can keep it low.”

New Bedford, MASS. – Less than two years ago, former Titleist and TaylorMade golf ball engineer Dean Snell left the comfort and safety of working for a large golf ball manufacturer to launch his own business, Snell Golf.

With headquarters in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Snell has quickly seen his golf ball line-up chalk up record sales numbers and earn high praise from independent golfers and media including rave reviews in Golf Digest’s 2016 Hot List issue.

Today, Snell announced that he is expanding his business into Canada with the launch of SnellGolfCanada.com to provide avid and recreational Canadian golfers with easy access to purchase and enjoy golf balls with excellent performance at affordable prices.

“At the heart of Snell Golf is an e-commerce business model, zero player contracts and low overheads,” said Snell Golf President Dean Snell. “Our intent is to create a high-quality golf ball and sell it an attractive price lower than comparable balls in the market. Golfers everywhere – including Canadians – are starting to take notice, which is why expansion into Canada was a logical and inevitable move for the company.”

As a result of the launch in Canada, Snell Golf has named Ron Stenzl, from Kingston, Ont. as President. Stenzl, 58, is an entrepreneur with a strong sales and finance background with previous ownership and management experience at Leeds Transit. Moreover, Stenzl is a life-long, avid golfer who understands the golf consumer and is excited about the Snell Golf brand.

“Dean Snell is a golf ball guru and our group intends to transfer his expertise and effectively market and distribute his existing golf ball line and any future golf ball innovations to the Canadian golf community,” Stenzl said. “Both golf balls are outstanding. Golfers who now play the balls are quick to talk about how much they like them and we are thrilled with now easily available they will now be to Canadian golfers.”

Snell Golf Canada is going to initially introduce the 2 piece ball (Get Sum) at $27.50 per dozen and the 3 piece ball (My Tour Ball), the flagship product at $42.00 per dozen which is 20-25% percent less than other recreational and tour quality golf balls. We are confident that our customers in Canada will have amazing shot-making moments with Snell Golf balls.”

Snell, who has worked with countless Tour professionals, owns 40 granted U.S. golf ball patents and is the co-inventor of the original ProV1 has parlayed his 25 years of experience with equipment giants Titleist and TaylorMade to bring forth the same philosophies and materials to create his premium golf balls.

A premium multi-layered ball with a thin cast urethane cover, Snell Golf’s “My Tour Ball” ($31.99 per dozen) is the company’s flagship model and its performance is akin to the balls played on today’s professional tours. The ball features a low compression high velocity core allowing lower driver spin rates and faster ball speeds for all swing speeds to promote longer and straighter drives. The cast urethane cover is a Tour-proven technology that produces excellent short game spin and control while delivering soft feel and outstanding durability.

MAMARONECK, N.Y. – Canada’s Garrett Rank and American Patrick Christovich, a pair of mid-amateurs who are the lowest remaining seeded team in the match-play bracket, won two matches in dramatic fashion Tuesday to advance to the semifinals of the 2016 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship on the par 70, 6,728-yard East Course at Winged Foot Golf Club.

Rank, a professional hockey referee, made a 6-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to hand his team a 1-up quarterfinal victory over David Kocher, 20 of Charlotte, N.C., and Connor Tendall, 23, of North Potomac, Md. Earlier in the day, Christovich, 37, of New Orleans, La., set up a winning birdie in the third round on the 21st hole, the par-3 third, by striking a 157-yard 9-iron to close range.

“This is why you practice and this is why you play,” said Rank about the excitement of advancing to the semifinals. “It makes that long drive to Hershey (to referee) and back (to this championship) feel good along with the grind of taking clubs to the airport and practicing during the winter.”

Connor and Tendall, who are former University of Maryland teammates, won the opening two holes, but Christovich made a sweeping long-distance birdie putt on No. 7 and Rank sank a 24-footer for another birdie to square the match on No. 10. The teams went back and forth on the inward nine. Connor and Tendall regained the lead with a conceded birdie on the par-3 13th before Rank and Christovich won No. 15 with a par.

“Every time we got one back, next hole they put one right back on us,” said Christovich, a realtor who has won three Louisiana Mid-Amateur Championships.

Rank, 28, of Elmira, Ont., and the 2012 U.S. Mid-Amateur runner-up, kept the match all square on the par-4 16th when he sank a ticklish 20-foot birdie putt.

The U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship consists of 36 holes of stroke play, 18 each on the East and West Courses of Winged Foot Golf Club, followed by five rounds of match play on the East Course. Fox Sports 1 (FS1) will televise Wednesday’s semifinals and championship, scheduled as an 18-hole final, from 3-5:30 p.m. EDT.

Christovich and Rank will meet Ben Baxter, 20, of Flower Mound, Texas, and Andrew Buchanan, 21, of Los Altos, Calif., in the semifinals. In the quarterfinals, the Southern Methodist University teammates dispatched the No. 1 seed and stroke-play medalists, Brandon Matthews, 21, of Dupont, Pa., and Patrick Ross, 24, of Dunmore, Pa., 2 and 1

Semifinal sides, which must remain intact, are exempt from qualifying for the 2017 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club, in the Village of Pinehurst, N.C.

The U.S. Amateur Four-Ball is one of 13 national championships conducted annually by the United States Golf Association, 10 of which are strictly for amateurs.

View www.usga.org for scoring info.

About the team:

Garrett Rank, 28, of Canada

• Born Sept. 5, 1987 in Kitchener, Ontario (Hails from Elmira, Ont.)
• No. 1,111 in World Amateur Golf Ranking™
• He and partner Patrick Christovich played in the longest match (21 holes) in U.S. Amateur Four-Ball history during their Round-of-16 win
• Competing in his 11th USGA championship
• Runner-up in the 2012 U.S. Mid-Amateur and reached match play in last year’s U.S. Amateur
• 2014 and 2015 Canadian Mid-Amateur champion
• American Hockey League and National Hockey League referee

Patrick Christovich, 37, of New Orleans, La.

• Born July 18, 1978 in New Orleans, La.
• No. 500 in World Amateur Golf Ranking™
• He and partner Garrett Rank are the lowest remaining seed (No. 4) in the championship
• Competing in his 11th USGA championship
• Quarterfinalist in the 2014 U.S. Mid-Amateur
• Advanced to 2016 U.S. Open sectional qualifying
• Works as a real estate agent

IRVING, Texas – Sergio Garcia shot a 62 the first round he played at the Byron Nelson and tied for third as a 19-year-old kid in 1999. He won there five years later, again with Lord Byron watching.

With another win at the Nelson, Garcia matched Seve Ballesteros for the most PGA Tour victories by a Spanish-born player.

Garcia made a par on the first playoff hole Sunday to beat Brooks Koepka for his ninth career PGA Tour victory. He then touched the likeness of Nelson that tops the championship trophy and wiped away tears while sharing a moment with Peggy Nelson, the late golfer’s widow.

“I just said thanks for everything, that it was great to see her again,” Garcia said. “It’s been a very emotional week and obviously Peggy finished it off by making me cry, which I didn’t think I was going to do.”

The 36-year-old Spaniard overcame four bogeys, and two balls in the water on the back nine, for a 2-under 68 to get to 15-under 265. He was two groups ahead of the final pairing of hometown favourite Jordan Spieth and Koepka, who bogeyed the 14th and 15th holes and just missed a birdie chance at 18.

“To be up there with Seve, it means the world to me and I kind of – you can kind of say I went a little bit a la Seve today,” he said. “I definitely wasn’t driving the ball great until the end and a couple of iron shots here and there, but I was chipping and putting great. Some of his wins were like that and I’m very proud of it.”

Koepka, who started the day with a two-stroke lead over Spieth, was 17 under after his last birdies of the day, at Nos. 7 and 9. He shot 71.

Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., shot a 276 overall to finish in a tie for 58th place.

When they went back to 413-yard 18th again for the playoff, Koepka went first and drove into the water before taking his drop and leaving his approach short of the green. Garcia hit a drive of more than 300 yards and followed with a wedge to about 17 feet.

“I drew it back into the wind. I was hoping it might hit the rocks,” Koepka said. “I really didn’t have much the last 36 holes. I had no idea where the ball was going.”

Garcia also won the 2004 Nelson and is the first two-time winner in the 34 tournaments since the event moved to TPC Four Seasons in 1983.

Matt Kuchar was a stroke out of the playoff at 14 under after a 65.

Spieth, the world’s No. 2-ranked player, had two bogeys in his first five holes Sunday and went on to shoot 74. He finished tied for 18th at 10 under.

“Just didn’t really get anything going and kind of stinks, given I had a chance here at a hometown event,” Spieth said.

Koepka hit each of his first two shots into the rough at the 14th and 15th holes. Those bogeys allowed Garcia to match the lead.

Even after his drive at No. 18 went into the right rough, Koepka still had a chance to win without a playoff when he made a nice shot to the green. But his 16-foot birdie chance curled just under the cup.

Garcia was 15 under for the third time in his final round when he made a short birdie putt after a nice chip shot at the par-5 16th. He had a pair of 12-foot birdie chances after that, but the ball stopped short at the par-3 17th and curled around the cup at No. 18.

In his 301st PGA Tour start, Garcia improved to 5-6 in playoffs and got a check for $1,314,000. Koepka was in his first playoff in his 55th tournament, a year after his only victory in the Phoenix Open.

Spieth first played in the Byron Nelson as a 16-year-old six years ago, when he tied for 16th – still his best finish in his six starts there. The Dallas native missed his high school graduation ceremony the following year after again making the cut there as an amateur.

Six weeks after his misery at the Masters, and a week after missing the cut at The Players Championship in his only other tournament since that blown five-stroke lead on the back nine when trying to win at Augusta for the second year in a row, Spieth was pretty much out of contention at home after his two early bogeys.

“Frustration, yeah,” Spieth said, describing how he felt. “I mean don’t go from the final group in second place alone and finish in 18th … there’s not many positives you’ll be able to take out of that other than the last hole I played I made birdie.”

That came on the same day that third-ranked Rory McIlroy won the Irish Open, his home tournament where he had struggled over the years.

AT&T, which sponsors the Nelson and Spieth, gave away 8,000 bobbleheads on Saturday. There were huge crowds watching his every move and his picture was plastered everywhere at TPC Four Seasons, but he had three bogeys in his first eight holes Sunday.

STRAFFAN, Ireland – Rory McIlroy eagled the final hole to cap his first victory of the season Sunday at the Irish Open, his home tournament where he’s famously struggled over the years.

McIlroy’s three-shot triumph over Scotland’s Russell Knox and Bradley Dredge of Wales wasn’t smooth sailing. But the Northern Ireland native prevailed with a 3-under 69, thanks to superior driving power that allowed him to birdie the K Club’s first three par-5 holes – then demolish the competition with his final powerful approach shot.

His 253-meter (276-yard) second strike on the 18th landed within three feet of the pin to the deafening cheers of tens of thousands who had braved downpours and hail showers to witness the moment. McIlroy grinned and brushed away a tear or two as he approached the green.

When McIlroy calmly converted his only eagle of the tournament, he stood still and silent for a second. Then he pumped both fists in elation.

“To finish like that today, I’ll never forget it,” McIlroy said after receiving the crystal winner’s trophy beside Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny.

Third-ranked McIlroy long has made winning the Irish Open an elusive priority, his past failures all the more awkward because he’s also the tournament’s official host and donates his prize money to his Rory Foundation children’s charity. He had failed to make the Irish Open cut since 2012. His previous best was seventh place in 2008.

McIlroy looked in danger of squandering his three-stroke lead at the start of Sunday’s final round as Knox, playing alongside him, putted impressively while McIlroy wasted opportunity after opportunity on the greens, including a miss for bogey from barely two feet on the par-4 11th hole.

When Knox birdied the 14th and 15th holes to seize a one-shot lead, McIlroy responded with arguably his greatest shot of the year – a go-for-broke drive across the River Liffey that landed improbably in the heart of the 16th green. As the fans roared their approval, a rattled Knox struck his only back-nine bogey as McIlroy two-putted for a go-ahead birdie.

“I was taking a risk. … It was a huge turning point,” said McIlroy, who added it was hard for him to keep his focus “when there’s 30,000 people roaring you on. The ovation I got when that ball landed on the 16th green sent shivers down my spine.”

Knox agreed it was a pivotal moment, and praised McIlroy’s final three holes.

“The shots that Rory hit in the end, he deserves to win. … Rory hits it further than anyone,” said Knox, who is ranked 28th. “That shot that Rory hit on 18 was a joke. What a way for him to finish.”

McIlroy nearly birdied the par-3 17th as well. He laughed when the ball circled the cup and rolled a few inches back in his direction.

He now faces three majors in the next 10 weeks – and describes his Irish breakthrough as a needed psychological “catapult” to reclaim his best form.

“I felt I needed a week like this to kick-start something. No better place than back here at home in Ireland,” he said.

Ireland’s consistently inconsistent weather added another layer of drama.

Lightning storms caused four hours of delays Saturday that forced a dozen players – including McIlroy, Knox and Masters champion Danny Willett – to complete the third round at sunrise Sunday. Their day’s combined 21 holes of golf took nearly 10 hours to complete as blue skies gave way to wintry monsoons that left fairways and greens waterlogged and carpeted with hailstones, causing two more suspensions in play.

“We had all the four seasons in one day basically,” McIlroy said.

Willett led for the first two days and began Sunday in second place, three behind McIlroy and one ahead of Knox. But Willett, the world No. 9, couldn’t break par on a single hole and suffered a collapse in form on the rain-drenched back nine. He twice dropped shots into the Liffey to card a 5-over round of 77, including a double bogey on McIlroy’s fateful 16th.

McIlroy joked with journalists over which of his 5-wood fairway shots on to the 16th and 18th greens had been the more impressive. When one suggested that his final approach was superior, McIlroy brought the house down with his reply: “If you were a real golfer, you’d appreciate the 16th.”

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – Ariya Jutanugarn quickly has made winning a habit on the LPGA Tour.

The 20-year-old shot a nearly mistake-free 4-under 67 on Sunday and won the Kingsmill Championship by one shot for her second consecutive victory. The bad news for the rest of the tour is that she said this one was much easier to finish off than her first two weeks ago.

That one, she said, allowed her to accomplish her goal for the season. Everything else, it seems, is gravy.

“I mean, last win was like breakthrough everything, so after I won one tournament – because I really want to win one tournament this year – and after I do that, I just feel like whatever it is, I’m just going to take it and have fun, so that’s the only thing,” Jutanugarn said.

After two final-round meltdowns, Jutanugarn became the first Thai winner in tour history two weeks ago in Alabama. Last month in the ANA Inspiration, she had a two-stroke lead with three holes left and closed with three bogeys to finish fourth – two strokes behind winner Lydia Ko. In the 2013 LPGA Thailand at age 17, Jutanugarn blew a two-stroke lead with a closing triple bogey in a one-stroke loss to Inbee Park.

On Sunday, she gave up the lead briefly after an early bogey. She recovered quickly with back-to-back birdies, and played the final 16 holes in 5 under.

“I didn’t feel pressure,” she said. “Today I just feel like whatever is fine because I just really want to have fun. I’m not really care. Actually I know they play good, but I’m not really care about them. I really worry about like what I want to do more.”

She finished at 14-under 270 at Kingsmill’s 6,347-yard River Course.

So Oh finished was second after a 65, with Gerina Piller and Sei Young Kim two shots back.

Jutanugarn, also the third-round leader, closed the round by getting up-and-down from the right side of the green on the 18th hole, hitting her chip to within about 5 feet and rolling it in to become the first player with back-to-back wins since top-ranked Ko in Southern California in the Kia Classic and ANA Inspiration.

If not the chip from about 80 feet on the last hole, Jutanugarn’s pivotal moment came at the par-5 15th when she chipped the ball from tall greenside rough with the ball well below her feet to about 5 feet and made the putt, doubling her lead as she reached 14 under par.

She played the entire tournament without a three-putt.

Oh, 19, started the day in a tie for eighth, then played the front nine in 5 under to grab a share of the lead at 12 under. She gave one back on the par-4 12th, got back to minus 12 at No. 15 and holed a lengthy putt from the back fringe on the 72nd hole to finish at 13 under. It was just the second birdie of the day at No. 18.

“I knew I had to get off to a really good start, and I did,” Oh said. “It was just one shot at a time.”

Piller, seeking her first career victory, trimmed three strokes off par on the front and got to minus 12 with a birdie at the par-4 16th, but she missed lengthy birdie putts on her last two holes. She has finished in the top 20 29 times in her career, including six this year.

Kim shot a 66, finishing with a birdie putt of her own on the finishing hole.

Mi Jung Hur used the round of the day to gain a share of fifth. She had nine birdies and got to 11 under at No. 17, but she made bogey at the par-4 18th and finished tied with Lexi Thompson and Pornanong Phatlum at 274.

All three reached 11 under at one point but faltered in an intermittent light drizzle.

Defending champion Minjee Lee shot even Sunday and finished in a tie for 10th.

Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., had her best round of the tournament Sunday, shooting 3-under 68 to finish tied for 26th at 4 under.

Fourth-ranked Stacy Lewis closed with a 74 and remained winless in her last 49 starts. She tied for second two weeks ago in Alabama, her 10th runner-up finish during the drought and the 23rd of her career.

Thompson, ranked third in the world and trying to follow a victory two weeks ago in Japan, was 6-under for the day and got to minus 11 through 11 holes but followed with consecutive bogeys.

Ko started the day tied for 24th. She shot 69 and finished tied for 18th.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Bernhard Langer erased any doubt not long after his nearest challenger had all but conceded.

Langer ran away with the Regions Tradition on Sunday for his sixth senior major and 27th PGA Tour Champions title. He birdied the final three holes and five of seven to pull away for a six-stroke victory over Olin Browne, who had already predicted that “nobody’s running down Berhnard.” The 58-year-old German finished with a 5-under 67 at Greystone for a 17-under 271 total.

Langer matched Gary Player and Tom Watson with the third-most major championships on the 50-and-over-tour, behind Hale Irwin’s seven and Jack Nicklaus’s eight. He opened the day with a four-stroke lead, lost a couple of strokes and closed emphatically with the birdie binge.

Langer could become the first player to win all five of the current senior majors if he wins the Senior PGA Championship next week.

“It’s just an amazing feeling to win any tournament, but to win the majors against the best players on tough venues and good courses just means that much more,” Langer said. He called it his 100th victory as a professional, “and to do it in a major means even more.”

Browne made a 6-foot birdie putt on the final hole for a 67. Tommy Armour III, Joey Sindelar and Kirk Triplett finished at 10 under.

It was the lowest score at the Tradition since Fred Funk finished with a 269 in 2008 at Oregon. It was also the largest margin of victory since Doug Tewell won by nine in 2001.

Browne closed with a six-foot birdie putt for a 67 but some near-misses on the greens helped keep him from challenging Langer at the end. Langer came in with the tour’s lowest scoring average and still hasn’t finished worse than 11th this year.

“He’s as fit as he’s ever been,” Browne said. “They’ve tried to ruin his putting by taking away the long putter and he’s not letting that happen. He’s still putting great. He’s just a consummate course management guy. He absolutely refuses to give an inch. He charts the course better than anybody else, he plays to his strengths and he’s tenacious.”

That was certainly true Sunday.

Langer saved par with a 20-footer upslope on No. 4 after his tee shot rolled into the water, forcing him to take a drop. The normally stoic German raised both arms in the air and then pumped his right fist celebrating the shot – more of a reaction than when he polished off a win that hadn’t really been in doubt for a while.

“That was key to keep the momentum going,” Langer said. He opened with a 5-foot birdie putt on the first hole but said his most consistent success came off the tee.

“I drove the ball phenomenal,” Langer said. “I can’t recall hitting every fairway for 36 holes in a row, and I’ve done that, I think. I don’t think I was in the rough once the last two days, which is pretty unique.

“I think that was key to the victory. My putter was hot and cold. My irons were hot and cold, but the driver was really the outstanding club. It didn’t let me down, not one time the last few days.”

Armour closed with a 66 with birdies on five of the last six holes while Sindelar and Triplett each had 68s.

John Daly finished at 5 under with a closing 74 after three straight rounds below par. He hit a sprinkler head on No. 10, but did finish with a crowd-pleasing eagle on 18.

“The guy says two shots of Crown on a putt like that, I’m usually going to make one of those,” Daly said. “If it’s for Crown, I’m making it.”

The 70-year-old Irwin bested his age with a 69. He finished 14 over for the tournament, though, including an 80 on Saturday.

GREER, S.C. – Richy Werenski won the BMW Charity Pro-Am on Sunday for his first Web.com Tour title, finishing with his second straight 6-under 65 for a two-stroke victory.

Werenski, the 24-year-old former Georgia Tech player who won the Golf Channel’s “Big Break” series last year, birdied the par-5 15th and 16th holes and closed with two pars at the Thornblade Club. He finished the three-course event at 21-under 265.

“I feel the same as I usually feel. It hasn’t set in,” said Werenski, based in Bluffton, South Carolina. “I knew if I went out there and played solid, that’s all you can do. I’ve learned my last two tournaments that it’s either your day or it’s not.”

Werenski made $121,500 to jump from seventh to second on the money list with $258,958 – more than enough to earn a PGA Tour as a top-25 finisher in the regular season. He tied for second this season in the Club Colombia and El Bosque Mexico championships.

“This is a totally different year than last year. I was fighting to get through the reshuffles. And now this year I can go out and keep playing and tallying up the money. I’ve got my PGA TOUR card, but my goal is to be No. 1 on the money list. I want to be fully exempt for next year.”

Zack Sucher (65), Brian Campbell (66) and Brett Drewitt (66) tied for second. Third-round leader Brandon Hagy (69) was fifth at 18 under.

On the par-4 18th, Werenski drove into the left rough and hit his approach over the green. He chipped to 2 feet to set up the winning par putt.

“I tried my best not to look at a scoreboard until the very end, and I can say I did that until 18,” Werenski said. “That’s something my coach told us at Georgia Tech – scoreboard watching brings in way too many variables. And you don’t’ want to pay attention to that, so I didn’t really know where I stood.”

Phil Mickelson never saw a shot he didn’t think he could hit.

Part of his massive popularity in golf is the high-risk nature with which he attacks the game. When he won his third Masters in 2010, the signature shot was a 6-iron between a gap in the Georgia pines that barely cleared a tiny tributary of Rae’s creek and settled 5 feet from the hole.

It’s the high risk off the golf course that could pose problems.

Mickelson’s association with Las Vegas gambler Billy Walters brought him the wrong kind of attention Thursday.

Federal authorities named Mickelson as a relief defendant in a civil suit that accuses Walters and Thomas Davis, a former corporate board member at Dean Foods, of insider trading that allowed them to make tens of millions of dollars in illicit stock trades.

Mickelson was not charged. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges he only benefited from the misdeeds of others. He agreed to repay (with interest) the $931,000 he made in a single trade of Dean Foods in the summer of 2012.

“Simply put, Mickelson made money that wasn’t his to make,” said Andrew Ceresney, the SEC’s head of the enforcement division.

“Phil was an innocent bystander to alleged wrongdoing by others that he was unaware of,” said Gregory Craig, one of Mickelson’s lawyers.

Here’s a timeline from 2012 contained in the complaint:

– Walters called Mickelson on July 27 and they exchanged texts over the next two days.

– Mickelson bought $2.4 million of Dean Foods shares on July 30 and July 31 in three brokerage accounts. The SEC says he had less than $250,000 in those accounts, had not been a frequent trader and had never bought Dean Foods stock.

– Dean Foods announced second-quarter earnings and the spinoff of subsidiary White Wave Foods after the market closed Aug. 7.

– The stock price went up 40 per cent the next day, and Mickelson sold all the shares he had bought for a $931,000 profit.

Perhaps more troublesome is the SEC allegation that Mickelson had placed bets with Walters prior to the tip, he owed Walters money at the time of the trading and that he repaid Walters a month later “in part with the proceeds of his trading.”

That raises some uncomfortable questions.

How much did Mickelson owe Walters? If he placed bets with Walter, what were they for?

The complaint has the attention of the PGA Tour, which has a section in its player handbook under “Conduct of Players” related to gambling. One part says that a player shall not “associate with or have dealings with persons whose activities, including gambling, might reflect adversely upon the integrity of the game of golf.”

“That’s something we’re in the process of looking at and determining,” tour spokesman Ty Votaw said.

Two years ago at the Memorial, two FBI agents approached Mickelson after his first round to talk to him about Walters during an insider trading investigation. Mickelson said that week he had been co-operating, that he had done nothing wrong and that he hoped in the future he would be able to discuss it.

He wasn’t talking Thursday.

Instead, his management company released a statement that said Mickelson felt “vindicated” because the SEC complaint does not say he violated any securities laws. It also said Mickelson did not want to benefit from a transaction the SEC viewed as questionable, so he was returning the money.

And it referenced the standards of his corporate partners who pay him millions in endorsements.

“He subscribes to the same values and regrets any appearance that, on this occasion, he fell short,” it said. “He takes full responsibility for the decisions and associations that led him to becoming part of this investigation.”

According to Golf Digest, Mickelson earned approximately $52 million on and off the golf course last year.

The statement said Mickelson appreciates that his sponsors are staying with him.

ExxonMobil and Barclays declined comment. KPMG said while disappointed by the SEC announcement, Mickelson’s statement “makes clear he respects and shares” the company’s values.

What next?

Mickelson often is referred to as the “People’s Choice” for his relationship with the fans. He treats them well. He takes time for them. His philanthropy is off the charts, whether it’s a teacher’s academy with ExxonMobile, paying for school supplies for the underprivileged or providing college education for wounded and fallen soldiers.

That might be enough to get him through his latest bad lie, this one not anywhere near a golf course.

Grâce à la paire québécoise formée d’Hugo Bernard et Joey Savoie, Saint Leo est le nouveau champion universitaire américain de la NCAA, Division II.

En finale samedi, les Lions ont eu le dessus par la marque de 3 et 2 devant Chico State dans un autre match serré.

Saint Leo avait eu le dernier mot en demi-finale au total des coups vendredi après avoir divisé 2,5 à 2,5 face à Lynn.

Ce titre est celui de la logique pour Saint Leo, qui avait terminé premier des sélections de 54 trous menant au volet éliminatoire.

Membre d’Équipe Canada et entraîné par Daniel Langevin, Hugo Bernard a remporté ses trois rencontres.

La semaine en fut une inoubliable pour le gaucher de Laval-sur-le-Lac, précédemment couronné champion individuel suite à des cartes de 65, 66 et 72 pour un combiné de -13.

Ce gradué d’André-Laurendeau avait précédemment mérité les trophées Arnold Palmer (voté par les entraîneurs), Phil Mickelson (meilleure recrue) en plus d’être nommé à la formation «All American». Il faut maintenant ajouter celui en équipe à sa rutilante collection.

Onzième lors des sélections, Joey Savoie, de Pinegrove, a aussi fait sa large part dans la situation victorieuse des siens avec deux gains.

Ce titre national représente une première au golf  pour l’Université Saint Leo.