Jeeno Thitikul makes late charge to catch Angel Yin in the LPGA finale

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Jeeno Thitikul makes late charge to catch Angel Yin in the LPGA finale

2024-11-24 06:58 Last Updated At：07:00

NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — Angel Yin was making putts from across the green and threatening to build a big lead until Jeeno Thitikul finished eagle-birdie for a 9-under 63 to share the lead Saturday going into the final round of the CME Group Tour Championship with $4 million on the line.

Yin had a 69 after another day of big putts and one chip-in from some 60 feet for eagle on the par-5 sixth hole that put her comfortably ahead at Tiburon Golf Club.

She holed a 30-footer on the eighth hole, another birdie from about 25 feet on the ninth hole and another one from the 30-foot range on the 12th.

Thitikul seemed to be an afterthought until she lit it up on the back nine for a 30. The Thai started the back nine with three straight bogeys, but she made up quick ground at the end with her eagle on the reachable par-5 17th and a birdie on the closing hole.

The birdie briefly gave her the lead until Yin made birdie on the 17th to join her. They were tied at 15-under 201, three shots head of Ruoning Yin, who birdied her last two for a 66.

Charley Hull had seven birdies in her round of 66 and was at 11-under 205, along with Narin An of South Korea.

Nelly Korda, who got back into the mix on Friday after a sluggish start, lost ground with a 69 on a pleasant day that left her six shots back going into the final round. Korda has won four of her seven LPGA titles this year coming from behind. This could be a tall order.

At stake is the richest payoff in women's golf, $4 million to the winner, nearly as much as Korda has made all year in her seven-victory season.

Thitikul already picked up a $1 million bonus this week through the Aon Risk-Reward Challenge, a competition based on how players score on a designated hole each week. Now she could leave Florida with a total of $5 million.

“Actually, $1 million is really good enough for me,” Thitikul said. “If I can get more, it’s definitely going to be a nice, because as my team know I spend a lot of money. That’s why I have to keep playing good golf, like spending on shopping day.”

Angel Yin heard plenty of cheers for her long birdie putts, and the chip-in for eagle. She also was helped by a couple of pars after bad drives. She went well to the left at No. 10, did well to blast out on a blind shot just short of the green and then got up-and-down with a pitch to 4 feet.

And then on the 13th, another tee shot went well to the left. She tried to get it back in play from just in front of some bushes, and from 50 yards hit wedge to about 15 feet. She holed that putt, too, that kept her in front.

“I'm scoring still,” Yin said. “Making some mistakes, but saving a bunch, so a lot of positives.”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

The week that upped the stakes of the Ukraine war

2024-11-24 06:58 Last Updated At：07:00

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — This past week has seen the most significant escalation in hostilities that Ukraine has witnessed since Russia's full-scale invasion and marks a new chapter in the nearly three-year war — one tinged with uncertainty and fear.

It began with U.S. President Joe Biden reversing a longstanding policy by granting Kyiv permission to deploy American longer-range missiles inside Russian territory and ended with Moscow striking Ukraine with a new experimental ballistic weapon that has alarmed the international community and heightened fears of further escalation.

Here is a look at the events in Ukraine in the span of a week that has fundamentally altered the stakes of the war:

Washington eased limits on what Ukraine can strike with its American-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, after months of ruling out such a move over fears of escalating the conflict and bringing about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

The change came after the U.S., South Korea and NATO said North Korean troops were inside Russia and being deployed to help Moscow drive Ukrainian troops from Russia’s Kursk region. But the scope of the new firing guidelines wasn’t clear.

The Kremlin warned that Biden’s decision would escalate international tensions even higher.

“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps, and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Ukraine fired several ATACMS, striking an ammunition warehouse in Russia’s Bryansk region, the first time Kyiv had used the weapons inside enemy territory, according to widespread reports. Ukrainian officials have not officially confirmed the strikes which occurred on the 1,000th day since the invasion.

Also Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons, opening the door to a potential nuclear response by Moscow to even a conventional attack by any nation supported by a nuclear power. That could include Ukrainian attacks backed by the U.S.

In the second major shift in U.S. policy, the Biden administration announced it will give Ukraine antipersonnel mines to help slow Russia’s battlefield advances. Biden had previously put off signing off on this because of international objections to the use of such mines due to the risks they pose to civilians. Russia deploys them freely.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the shift in Washington’s policy was needed to counter changing Russian tactics.

Ukraine also struck targets inside Russia using the British Storm Shadow missile, an equivalent of the ATACMS system, further vexing Moscow.

The U.S. and some other Western embassies in Kyiv temporarily closed in response to the threat of a potentially major Russian aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital.

The Kremlin fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine in response to Kyiv’s use of American and British missiles, Putin said.

In a televised address to the country, the Russian president warned that U.S. air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at 10 times the speed of sound and which he called the Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree — based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile, which can carry nuclear warheads.

Putin also said it could be used to attack any Ukrainian ally whose missiles are used to attack Russia. Moscow gave Washington a 30-minute warning of the attack, which struck a weapons factory in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

NATO and Ukraine scheduled emergency talks slated for Tuesday, the alliance said. The meeting will be held at the request of Ukraine and will convene at the level of ambassadors.

Ukraine’s parliament also canceled a session as security was tightened in the city. Lawmakers said there was a credible threat of an attack on government buildings.

Ukraine's partners weighed in on the dangerous new phase of the conflict. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the conflict is “entering a decisive phase" and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday he was confident the war could be ended in 2025.

“There are appropriate steps for this, they are included in our peace formula," he told journalists attending the Grain from Ukraine international conference on food security in Kyiv. "We realize that Russia will not take all these steps. But there is a U.N. charter and we hope that all our steps based on the U.N. charter will be supported by our partners.”

“We are open, I will say it again, and by the way, to the leaders of African countries, Asia, and the Arab states ... we are ready to see their proposals," he said. "I also want to see the proposals of the new president of the United States of America. I think we will see these proposals in January. And I think we will have a plan to end this war.”