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NASSAU, Bahamas — Justin Thomas was long off the tee and made a few long putts on the back nine to overtake Scottie Scheffler with a 6-under 66 and build a one-shot lead Saturday over golf's best player going into the final round of the Hero World Challenge. Thomas is trying out a 46-inch driver — a little more than an inch longer than normal — that he previously used for practice at home to gain speed and length. He blasted a 361-yard drive to 8 feet on the par-4 seventh hole and led the field in driving distance. But it was a few long putts that put him ahead of Scheffler, who had a 69. Thomas was on the verge of falling two shots behind when he made an 18-foot par putt on the par-3 12th hole. On the reachable par-4 14th, he was in a nasty spot in a sandy area and could only splash it out to nearly 50 feet. He made that one for a most unlikely birdie, while behind him Scheffler muffed a chip on the 13th hole and made his lone bogey of a windy day. People are also reading... Scheffler never caught up to him, missing birdie chances on the reachable 14th and the par-5 15th. Thomas hit his approach to 3 feet for birdie on the 16th after a 343-yard drive. Scheffler made an 18-foot birdie putt on the 16th to close within one. Scheffler missed birdie chances on the last two holes from the 10-foot and 15-foot range, while Thomas missed an 8-foot birdie attempt at the last. "I had a stretch at 13, 14, 15 where I felt like I lost a shot or two there, but outside of that I did a lot of really good things today," Scheffler said. Thomas hasn't won since the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills, and a victory at Albany Golf Club wouldn't count as an official win. But the two-time major champion has made steady progress toward getting his game back in order. "I'm driving it great. I've had a lot of confidence with it," Thomas said of his longer driver. "I feel like I've been able to put myself in some pretty good spots going into the green. I'm still not taking advantage of some of them as much as I would like, but that's golf and we're always going to say that." Thomas was at 17-under 199 and will be in the final group Sunday with Scheffler, who is trying to end his spectacular season with a ninth title. Tom Kim put himself in the mix, which he might not have imagined Thursday when he was 3 over through six holes of the holiday tournament. Kim got back in the game with a 65 on Friday, and then followed with 12 birdies for a 62. He had a shot at the course record — Rickie Fowler shot 61 in the final round when he won at Albany in 2017 — until Kim found a bunker and took two shots to reach the green in making a double bogey on the par-3 17th. Even so, he was only two shots behind. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley (68) was four back. "Feel like I've been seeing signs of improvement, which is what you want and that's all I can do," Thomas said. "I can't control everybody else or what's going on, I've just got to keep playing as good as I possibly can and hope that it's enough come Sunday." Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!Struggling Lakers return home looking to right the shipTravis Hunter and Ashton Jeanty give this year's Heisman Trophy ceremony a different vibeStruggling Lakers return home looking to right the ship
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NASSAU, Bahamas — Justin Thomas was long off the tee and made a few long putts on the back nine to overtake Scottie Scheffler with a 6-under 66 and build a one-shot lead Saturday over golf's best player going into the final round of the Hero World Challenge. Thomas is trying out a 46-inch driver — a little more than an inch longer than normal — that he previously used for practice at home to gain speed and length. He blasted a 361-yard drive to 8 feet on the par-4 seventh hole and led the field in driving distance. But it was a few long putts that put him ahead of Scheffler, who had a 69. Thomas was on the verge of falling two shots behind when he made an 18-foot par putt on the par-3 12th hole. On the reachable par-4 14th, he was in a nasty spot in a sandy area and could only splash it out to nearly 50 feet. He made that one for a most unlikely birdie, while behind him Scheffler muffed a chip on the 13th hole and made his lone bogey of a windy day. Scheffler never caught up to him, missing birdie chances on the reachable 14th and the par-5 15th. Thomas hit his approach to 3 feet for birdie on the 16th after a 343-yard drive. Scheffler made an 18-foot birdie putt on the 16th to close within one. Scheffler missed birdie chances on the last two holes from the 10-foot and 15-foot range, while Thomas missed an 8-foot birdie attempt at the last. "I had a stretch at 13, 14, 15 where I felt like I lost a shot or two there, but outside of that I did a lot of really good things today," Scheffler said. Thomas hasn't won since the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills, and a victory at Albany Golf Club wouldn't count as an official win. But the two-time major champion has made steady progress toward getting his game back in order. "I'm driving it great. I've had a lot of confidence with it," Thomas said of his longer driver. "I feel like I've been able to put myself in some pretty good spots going into the green. I'm still not taking advantage of some of them as much as I would like, but that's golf and we're always going to say that." Thomas was at 17-under 199 and will be in the final group Sunday with Scheffler, who is trying to end his spectacular season with a ninth title. Tom Kim put himself in the mix, which he might not have imagined Thursday when he was 3 over through six holes of the holiday tournament. Kim got back in the game with a 65 on Friday, and then followed with 12 birdies for a 62. He had a shot at the course record — Rickie Fowler shot 61 in the final round when he won at Albany in 2017 — until Kim found a bunker and took two shots to reach the green in making a double bogey on the par-3 17th. Even so, he was only two shots behind. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley (68) was four back. "Feel like I've been seeing signs of improvement, which is what you want and that's all I can do," Thomas said. "I can't control everybody else or what's going on, I've just got to keep playing as good as I possibly can and hope that it's enough come Sunday." Get local news delivered to your inbox!Unless you happen to be an average-size person with perfectly balanced proportions, the clothing you buy may or may not fit perfectly. A skilled tailor can make a wardrobe seem almost custom-made by taking up a hem, adjusting a cuff, or making a few nips and tucks here and there. The same applies to your investment portfolio. A standard asset-allocation mix (such as a model portfolio ) may work well for the “average” investor, but one size doesn’t always fit all. Here are some of the situations in which you might want to consider adjusting your portfolio for a better fit. The “bucket approach” is a great way to tailor your asset allocation to better fit your specific needs. The general idea is to keep one to two years’ worth of expenses in highly liquid securities to help meet short-term cash needs (plus an additional five years’ or more worth of living expenses in high-quality fixed-income securities to provide income and stability). That way you won’t have to scramble to sell securities to meet your ongoing expenses. In effect, this approach is a way of building a tailored asset allocation from the bottom up. Similarly, make sure your asset allocation accounts for both longer- and shorter-term goals. If you have upcoming events on the horizon such as a home purchase, college tuition, a wedding, or a big vacation, make sure you have enough of your portfolio in moderate-risk assets (such as high-quality short- or intermediate-term bond funds) to fund these goals. It’s far more likely for a single stock to have large losses than a diversified mutual fund, so it’s wise to prune any stock holdings so they make up less than 10% of your portfolio. If you’ve received significant equity awards as part of your total compensation, though, consider how to do so without realizing hefty capital gains. If your spouse is more than five years older or younger than you, your portfolios should probably look a bit different. The younger spouse can afford to have a higher equity weighting and a more aggressive risk profile, while the older one will want to dial back risk. If you hold assets jointly, consider using a blended approach based on the average of your two ages. If you’re fortunate enough to have relatives who lived into their 90s or beyond, it makes sense to plan for a longer-than-usual life expectancy. You can probably afford to take on more risk with more exposure to equities and high-risk assets. From an actuarial perspective, each year you live means your life expectancy gets longer. Some experts (such as Michael Kitces and Wade Pfau) even argue for a “reverse glide path,” which increases equity exposure as you get older instead of the reverse. On the flip side, if you’re dealing with a terminal illness, make sure to keep your portfolio conservative enough to meet higher-than-expected health care expenses and provide yourself with whatever you might need to make your remaining months and years a little more comfortable. You might want to leave a legacy to your children and grandchildren, but keep in mind that the gift of your time—not money—will probably be the most meaningful. So, don’t feel guilty about spending down your assets if you find yourself in a situation where you need to. If you weren’t able to save and invest early in your career, your portfolio balance might be relatively low. Taking a hard look at your spending is the most important step you can take in this situation. But while it might be tempting to ramp up your equity exposure to try to make up lost ground, it’s more prudent to take the opposite approach because a small portfolio has less room to absorb market losses. Because a pension is literally a fixed income, it functions like a bond position in a portfolio, so you can afford to increase the equity weighting with your other assets. Social Security works the same way: Your monthly benefits won’t grow beyond a small cost of living increase, but it’s effectively a bond-like income stream. Get local news delivered to your inbox!
It was a perfect measuring stick for a team still trying to find itself a quarter of the way through a season that isn’t going the way anyone expected. Bring in one of the best teams in the NHL, turn them loose in Rogers Place and let’s see where the inexplicably average stand. Turns out they didn’t stand at all. They got rolled over. They weren’t good enough. And they didn’t play hard enough. The Minnesota Wild schooled them on both counts Thursday. Despite the Oilers getting more gifts than a rich kid whose birthday falls on Christmas, the Wild still beat them for fun in a 5-3 victory that everyone in the place knew was more like 6-1. Minnesota had one goal taken off the board and another disallowed while Edmonton had one goal go in off a Wild skate and another beat Marc-Andre Fleury from 160 feet away. And the game still wasn’t close. There is no sugar-coating it: The gap between the Oilers and the best teams in the league is disturbingly large. Against opponents with winning records, Edmonton has just two wins in 10 tries (2-6-2), beating Calgary and Vancouver and losing to Winnipeg, Calgary, Dallas, Carolina, Jersey, Vegas, Toronto and Minnesota by a combined score of 33-12. “I don’t think we’ve played close to our potential many nights,” said defenceman Mattias Ekholm. “We know we played a lot better hockey (at their peak) last year but in order to get there it starts with the work, it starts with the defensive side of the game.” The sky isn’t falling yet. The Oilers are still hanging around a wildcard spot (10th in Western Conference winning percentage) with 61 games to go. Teams that sit 10-9-2 in mid November can still make it to the Stanley Cup Final. But teams that play like the Oilers are playing right now don’t make it past the first round. “I definitely believe in this team,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, who has no other choice. “I think we should be better than our record, but it’s a hard game. You need good players, but you need good players working hard. Collectively, we can do more.” That’s the issue right now. In the hard areas of the ice, Edmonton isn’t hard enough. “We talk about that all the time,” said 39-year-old winger Corey Perry, who is third among Oilers forwards in goals this year with four. “The (other) goalies are seeing too many shots and we’re trying to be too cute playing the perimeter game. It just doesn’t work.” Remember at the start of the season when Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner came to Edmonton, joining Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman as wingmen for and Leon Draisaitl? And the Oilers had the best top six in the NHL? Well, it’s 21 games in and after you get past McDavid and Draisaitl four of the next five leading scorers on this team are defencemen. After McDavid and Draisaitl, the forward with the most five-on-five points is third line winger Mattias Janmark. Arvidsson, who can’t seem to stay healthy, is injured, Skinner has bounced through all four lines already and Hyman and Nugent-Hopkins are a rumour, combining for four even-strength goals (two each) in 41 man games. “Overall, we have to find ways to score goals,” said Knoblauch. “You need skill to do that but you also need some grit, simplifying your game and going hard to the net.” Knoblauch wonders if some of his forwards are getting caught up in the McDavid-Draisaitl hype and forgetting what it takes to score goals when you aren’t one of the best players in the world. “We have incredibly skilled players who can make those plays,” Knoblauch said of his two lead dogs. “And when you’re playing with those guys and you see them doing it, sometimes the other players get mistaken identity and try that extra pass and play on the perimeter rather than shooting for a rebound and getting to the net. It’s little things like that.” It’s a similar theme around Edmonton’s net, where opposing players are setting up shop with very little resistance. “In the defensive zone it’s not being able to close things out and also losing battles around the net, the most important area,” said Knoblauch. “All (Minnesota’s) goals were five or 10 feet away from the blue paint. I don’t think we did enough to get there and defensively we didn’t do a good enough job boxing out.” And, in goal, Stuart Skinner ranks 52nd in the NHL in save percentage out of 60 goalies who’ve played five or more games this year. On a team that can’t score and isn’t committed enough around its own net, this is the last straw. “He’s not playing the level he was last year,” said Knoblauch. “Last year I thought he was one of the top goaltenders and if he had a bad game it was turned around the next night.” But while Skinner hasn’t been good enough, the Oilers are also not an easy team to be a goalie on. “For a goalie to play well we have to be more predictable for him,” said Knoblauch. “What kind of shots are we giving up? Where are they coming from? Taking away the high danger shots. Tonight was not a predictable game for a goaltender to turn his game around.” So the mystery continues. Is this another slow start that’s going to be wiped from the memory banks when the real show up and start tearing through the league? Or is this it? Is this who they are now? E-mail:
