Riviera Country Club to host of U.S. Amateur

Riviera Country Club, which has been the course for the regular Los Angeles stop on the PGA Tour 37 of the last 39 years, has been selected by the United States Golf Assn. as the host course for the 2017 U.S. Amateur championship.

The 1948 U.S. Open, won by Ben Hogan, and 1998 U.S. Senior Open, won by Hale Irwin, were played at Riviera. The PGA Championships of 1983, won by Hal Sutton, and 1995, won by Steve Elkington, were also held at Riviera, a course that became known as Hogan’s Alley after Hogan won the L.A. Open three times there, in addition to his Open championship.

The course will also be the host course for the NCAA Division I golf championship, which will run May 29-June 3.

Jason Dufner made a 25-foot birdie putt on the final hole for a one-stroke victory in the Byron Nelson Championship at Irving, Texas, his second victory in four weeks.

The winning putt wrapped up a closing three-under-par 67 for an 11-under 269 total. Dicky Pride was second.

Azahara Munoz beat Candie Kung, 2 and 1, to win the Sybase Match Play Championship at Gladstone, N.J., a title that was set up when Morgan Pressel was penalized for slow play while in control of their semifinal match.

Pressel appeared to take a 3-up lead with a par at the 12th hole. But before she could tee off on No. 13, tour official Doug Brecht informed her that she had violated the tour’s pace of play rule and lost the hole, dropping her lead to 1-up and changing momentum.

Munoz then rallied to beat Pressel, 2 and 1.

Vicky Hurst

Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts won the Volvo World Match Play Championship, beating Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell, 1-up, in windy conditions at Casares, Spain.

ETC.

Babe Ruth jersey sale price a record

The winning bidder wasn’t identified by the Internet auction firm, but the winning bid certainly was enough to grab anyone’s attention.

A New York Yankees jersey that is the earliest known uniform to be worn by Babe Ruth sold for a record $4,415,658, according to SCP Auctions, which concluded its April auction Sunday.

The previous record for a piece of sports memorabilia was $4,338,500 for James Naismith’s founding rules of basketball.

The jersey had been on exhibit at the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum in Baltimore. Ruth played 22 years in the major leagues and was baseball’s home run king, with 714, until Hank Aaron broke the record in 1974.

—Mike James

Maria Sharapova successfully defended her Italian Open title, beating Li Na, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5), in a wild match in which play was twice interrupted by rain and the red clay turned to mud.

The rain proved even more formidable for a men’s final that never happened. Defending champion Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will have to wait until Monday to settle their championship.

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The top-seeded USC men’s tennis team defeated eighth-seeded Duke, 4-1, in an NCAA quarterfinal match at Athens, Ga. The Trojans (31-1) head into a semifinal match Monday at 2 p.m. PDT against rival UCLA. The fourth-seeded Bruins (26-3) advanced with a 4-2 victory over fifth-seeded Ohio State. USC is trying for its fourth consecutive national championship.

In the other semifinal, seventh-seeded Pepperdine will play second-seeded Virginia, also at 2 p.m. PDT. The Waves upset hometown favorite and third-seeded Georgia, 4-3. The Cavaliers defeated Stanford, 4-0.

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Jack Beckman raced to his first funny car victory of the season, beating Don Schumacher Racing teammate Ron Capps in the NHRA Summernationals at Topeka, Kan.

David Grubnic won the top-fuel division, and Allen Johnson topped the pro stock field.

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Russia won the ice hockey world championship by defeating Slovakia, 6-2, at Helsinki, Finland.