Charl Schwartzel leads Memorial; Tiger Woods is six shots back

Charl Schwartzel made sure one hole didn’t ruin an entire round Thursday in the Memorial at Dublin, Ohio.

Schwartzel hit the ball so consistently well at Muirfield Village that the former Masters champion twice had stretches of four consecutive birdies. And when he made a double bogey with an eight-iron in hand and his ball on a tee toward the end of the round, he got rid of that bad taste with one last birdie for a seven-under-par 65.

Schwartzel had a one-shot lead over Scott Piercy, who went from smashing it to playing it safe, and he was six shots clear of five-time winner Tiger Woods.

Woods hit the ball well enough to be much closer, though he missed too many birdie chances and didn’t make up any ground on the par fives in his 71. Woods was one shot better than 14-year-old Guan Tianlang, who has played more PGA Tour events than Woods over the last two months.

Rory McIlroy shot a 78.

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Italy’s Matteo Manassero birdied his first six holes en route to a six-under 66 and a share of the first-round lead in the Nordea Masters with Spain’s Pablo Larrazabal at Stockholm. The 20-year-old Manassero is coming off a victory Sunday in the BMW PGA Championship.

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California’s Max Homa shot a four-under 66 to win the individual title in the NCAA golf championship at Milton, Ga., and his steady play carried the Golden Bears to the top seeding heading into team match play.

Homa won the title by three strokes over Jon Rahm of Arizona State and five others. UCLA and USC were not among the eight teams that advanced to match play.

ETC.

Chivas USA picks an interim coach

Sacha van der Most will be Chivas USA’s interim coach for Saturday’s game against the Seattle Sounders.

Chivas USA announced Van der Most’s one-game appointment one day after firing coach Jose Luis Sanchez Sola.

Van der Most is the director of soccer at Chivas USA’s youth academy.

Jose Luis Real Casillas will take over Chivas USA next week.

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The president of Ohio State University said Notre Dame was never invited to join the Big Ten Conference because the university’s priests are not good partners, joking that “those damn Catholics” can’t be trusted, according to a recording of a meeting he attended late last year.

Gordon Gee also took shots at schools in the Southeastern Conference and the University of Louisville, according to the recording of the December meeting of the school’s Athletic Council that the Associated Press obtained under a public records request.

The university called the statements inappropriate and said Gee is undergoing a “remediation plan” because of the remarks.

Gee apologized in a statement released to the AP.

“The comments I made were just plain wrong, and in no way do they reflect what the university stands for,” he said in the statement. “They were a poor attempt at humor and entirely inappropriate. There is no excuse for this and I am deeply sorry.”

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Rosie Napravnik is set to become the first female jockey to ride in all three Triple Crown races in the same year, and the first to try to win one aboard a filly.

Trainer Todd Pletcher said that Napravnik is “very, very likely” to be his rider for Unlimited Budget in the Belmont Stakes on June 8.

A final decision on whether Unlimited Budget takes on the boys in the Belmont will be made after a scheduled workout over the weekend.

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A memorial service for Dr. Lewis Yocum, the longtime Angels team physician who died Saturday after quietly battling liver cancer, will be held at 10 a.m. on June 22 at American Martyrs Church in Manhattan Beach. The church is at 624 15th St.

In lieu of flowers, the Yocum family requests donations be sent to: Saint Sebastien Sports Project, P.O. Box 1711, Manhattan Beach, CA 90267.

—Mike DiGiovanna

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Bill Austin, a Pro Bowl lineman for the New York Giants and a member of their 1956 NFL championship team, died at his home in Las Vegas. He was 84.