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SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — Joaquin Niemann became the latest example of golf cracking down on bad behavior when the USGA penalized him two shots Friday for heaving his club while making a 9 — which turned into an 11 — late in the first round of the U.S. Open.

Perhaps as spectacular as his meltdown was the recovery.

About a half-hour after being informed of the penalty, Niemann birdied five of the first six holes of his second round and shot 65 to easily get inside the cut line. He would be the first player in 97 years to make 10 or worse on a hole and still make the cut.

“All the frustration that came inside me and had my club in my hand, and I couldn’t resist to throw it away,” Niemann said. “There was no people, obviously. No one there. I’m not proud of it, but yeah, sometimes all the expectation of trying to play well and things doesn’t go your way, you get frustrated. And that was me there.”

And then the USGA made him an example, skipping the warning and going straight to a two-shot penalty — the third step is disqualification — for what it cited as serious misconduct.

The USGA cited Rule 1.2b on “Code of Conduct.” Among incidents that fall under this category are unacceptable language and abuse of clubs or the course.

While the rule has always been in place, the USGA and all the other golf organizations have met in recent years to develop consistent guidelines for a conduct policy, applied separately by each of the organizations at their tournaments.

The Masters used it for the first time in April when Sergio Garcia was issued a warning after a bad drive on the par-5 second hole in the final round. He slammed his club into the turf twice and swung his club at a table holding a green cooler. That left the head of his driver dangling from the shaft.

The PGA Championship also posted the policy in the locker room at Aronimink last month.

The frustration for Niemann was evident. He was at even par in the first round late Thursday afternoon when he hit two tee shots out of play down the right side of the sixth fairway. The fifth shot wasn’t much better, in the clumpy grass short of the fairway.

Niemann said he saw ants near his bad lie in the sandy oil and asked if they were fire ants, which could be considered a dangerous situation making him entitled to a drop. That was rejected. He hacked it out to the fairway, and then his sand wedge came up just short of the green.

That’s when the 27-year-old from Chile heaved his club.

The USGA policy for serious misconduct says if a player’s behavior (or that of his caddie) is “so far removed from what is expected in the spirit of the game of golf,” officials can assess a two-shot penalty or disqualify the player while considering “the frequency, impact, intent and severity of the misconduct.”

Niemann was informed of the penalty after he signed his card, and the two shots gave him a 78.

He had 37 minutes before his next tee time.

“I’m not someone that likes to be in that behavior. I’m the first one to judge myself when I don’t behave on the golf course. Yeah, that was a misbehave from my part,” Niemann said. “I felt a little bit extra penalized with the two-shot penalty, but I think it is what it is.”

He said he argued the penalty to no avail. Ultimately, it’s a judgment call among the committee.

“It is what it is. I think I’m going to learn from it,” Niemann said. “It definitely helped me a little bit to have a better round today.”

The incident happened on Niemann’s final hole Thursday evening of fog-delayed opening round. While video has not surfaced of the club throw, The Athletic spoke to a marshal on the sixth hole who said Niemann kicked the flag marking where his ball was in the rough, kicked the grass and reported that “it was a pretty impressive throw, actually.”

Tempers have long been part of golf, a most frustrating game. Rory McIlroy once heaved a 3-iron into the lake at Doral and last year flung an iron after a poor shot. Henrik Stenson and Erik van Rooyen are among those who have taken out their frustrations on tee markers.

Those typically result in fines by the tours.

But there has been a concerted effort in recent years to be more uniform with a conduct policy, and it has come into play twice in three majors this year.

Niemann, who left for LIV Golf after the 2022 season, won in South Korea last month for his eighth career victory in the rival league that began with Saudi Arabia funding but now faces an uncertain future with the Public Investment Fund no longer supporting it.

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

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — The smashed-up locker at Oakmont last year is as much a part of Wyndham Clark’s resume as the U.S. Open title he won two years before that.

Such is life in a world teeming with cell phone cameras and viral video. Such is life in professional golf, a sport built on managing failure and harnessing emotions — and where success one week, or one year, doesn’t always carry over to the next.

Clark’s spot at the top of the U.S. Open leaderboard after his second round at Shinnecock on Friday brought up expected reminders of his emotion-filled journey through a sport — a life, really — that Clark himself acknowledged nobody truly ever masters.

“I was on top of the world in my game, at least when I won the U.S. Open, and then had some good years,” the 32-year-old said. “Then, next thing you know, I’m apologizing for breaking a locker.”

Much as tennis great John McEnroe will always have “You cannot be serious!” alongside the seven grand slam singles titles he won in another of sports’ biggest pressure cookers, Clark will always have the broken locker at Oakmont. He will always have the underhanded fling of the driver that smashed an advertising board and snapped off the clubhead at the PGA Championship, a few months before the locker debacle.

Because of that, he’ll probably also always have his share of detractors and critics — people watching for his next burst of brilliance on the golf course, but also waiting for the next big blowup.

“I’m fierce, competitive, love the game, respect the game, and I just had a bad moment,” Clark said. “Hopefully, I can win those people back.”

His breakthrough three years ago at LA Country Club was tinged with tears and stories of the personal growth Clark had to make to reach that point.

Much of it had to do with the emotional residue left from his mom’s death in 2013 — a family tragedy that he conceded had left him spiraling.

“I didn’t show any emotion off the course,” Clark explained after his victory that day. “But when I was on the golf course, I couldn’t have been angrier.”

The easy way for the armchair psychologists (and sports pundits) to explain things after that win was to conclude that Clark’s victory proved he had harnessed the emotion, turned the page and beaten back all the demons.

It’s never that simple.

“For any of us, this is a process,” Clark’s sports psychologist, Julie Elion, wrote in her new book ’Mastering Your Mental Game.” “Golfers don’t reach the top and then stay there forever.”

Clark followed the U.S. Open win with 18 months of good golf, including a win at Pebble Beach. Last year was something different — he only had two top-10 finishes, did not make the FedEx Cup playoffs and was nowhere to be seen at the Ryder Cup.

“Mastering our mental game in golf or reaching a state of growth or self-improvement in life isn’t always a permanent condition,” Elion wrote. “It takes more work over more years, and there are frequently hills and valleys.”

At Shinnecock, where Clark will head into the weekend at 7-under par, four shots ahead of Xander Schauffele and three others, he finds himself back on the rise again. He recently took to social media to tell the world he had a new girlfriend, Emily Tanner, who held hands with him as they exited the 18th green after Friday’s round of 1-under 69.

Four weeks ago, Clark won the Byron Nelson for his first victory in 28 months.

“I kind of looked at it objectively and took a bird’s-eye view on it and said, ‘OK, I’m not hitting it good off the tee, I’m not putting as good as I was,’” he explained about his turnaround. “And I said, ‘All right, I’ve got to attack that.’”

He hired a swing coach, Pat Coyner at Cherry Hills, near where Clark grew up outside of Denver.

He’s been hitting his driver straighter of late. His iron game has improved dramatically (up 110 spots in the analytic-driven stat: strokes gained on approach shots). He found a new putter, which has helped him dial in dramatically over the past four weeks, during which he also finished third at the Memorial and played in the final group last Sunday at the Canadian Open.

Never more did it look in sync than Friday on No. 18, where he sank a 35-footer to finish the day in red numbers.

Now, a chance for another breakthrough. With a win, he would celebrate again. But he knows as well as anyone that it wouldn’t mean the work — both on and off the course — is behind him.

“I just think with the mental game there’s ebbs and flows,” Clark said. “If you think of it as climbing Everest, sometimes you go up, sometimes you have to go down to go back up. I think that’s kind of what happens both on the golf course and off the golf course. Right now I’m trending back up, which is nice.”

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

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Scott Forbes had just wrapped up a College World Series news conference Friday when Skip Johnson walked into the room to pose with him for an annual picture of the head coaches next to the national championship trophy, a longtime tradition the day before the start of the finals.

“Hey, buddy,” North Carolina’s Forbes said, beaming and extending his hand to the Oklahoma coach.

“You thought we were going to fight?” Johnson said, turning to reporters.

The college baseball lifers have known each other for decades, since they spent long days and nights scouting the same talent showcases and engaging in recruiting battles during long runs as assistants.

“I always thought if we met up together,” Forbes told Johnson, “we’d be hunting.”

Oh, they’re hunting together all right.

North Carolina will be looking for its first national title in baseball and Oklahoma for its third when the schools square off in Game 1 of the best-of-three series at Charles Schwab Field on Saturday night.

The Tar Heels and Sooners have taken different routes to reach the same destination.

North Carolina (53-12-1) has lost consecutive games just once, in early March, and has been ranked no lower than No. 4 by D1Baseball.com the last two months.

Oklahoma (41-22) was ranked as high as No. 8 and then lost six of nine series in Southeastern Conference play. The Sooners finished 11th in the SEC and were unranked when they entered the national tournament off losses in seven of nine games.

“I think the SEC just offers a great preparation, period, for this type of tournament,” OU’s Trey Gambill said. “There’s no breaks. Just like in this tournament, you’re not playing any bad teams. You’re not playing any mediocre teams. You’re playing the best of the best. So the SEC just prepared us for always being ready to put our best out there.”

Both teams went 3-0 in CWS bracket play. The Tar Heels have won five straight, and the Sooners are on a season-best eight-game streak.

The Game 1 pitching matchup pits North Carolina ace Jason DeCaro (11-2) against 6-foot-6, 237-pound left-hander Cord Rager (6-3), one of three freshman starters for the Sooners. DeCaro went 6 2/3 innings and struck out nine in Carolina’s 6-2 win over Mississippi last Friday. Rager walked none and struck out eight in seven innings of a 9-0 win over Alabama last Saturday.

SEC streak on line

Oklahoma will be going for the Southeastern Conference’s seventh straight national title and 18th overall, which would tie the Pac-12 for most.

The SEC is assured of having the champion, runner-up or both for the 20th time since 2000. The Sooners are the 10th different SEC team to reach the finals over that span.

ACC’s first finals since 2015

North Carolina is the first Atlantic Coast Conference team to make the CWS finals since Virginia in 2015.

The Tar Heels are trying to become the third ACC program to win a national title in baseball. Wake Forest won the first in 1955 and Virginia the second in 2015.

North Carolina (2006-07, 2026) and Virginia (2014-15) are the only ACC programs to play in the finals since the best-of-three format started in 2003.

Power surge

DeCaro will face a Sooners team that’s averaging 10.4 runs per game with 22 homers during their eight-game win streak. They’ve gone deep eight times in the CWS, including five in an 11-4 win over Georgia on Wednesday. OU has 45 homers in its 20 games since May 1 after hitting 46 homers in its first 43.

“What Jason’s going to do is what he’s been doing,” Forbes said. “We don’t care what the offense has been, what they’re doing, how hot they are. He’s going to go right after them with his stuff. You start being tentative, you start getting negative counts, then that offense gets even better.”

Call him K-den

North Carolina is 28-0 when Caden Glauber pitches. The freshman leads the Tar Heels with 106 strikeouts and 13.76 per nine innings, and he has allowed one run in 5 1/3 innings over three CWS games.

Another freshman reliever, lefty Jackson Rose, pitched 4 1/3 innings of shutout relief in a 12-7 win over West Virginia and has a 2.15 ERA over 50 2/3 innings this season.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — Wyndham Clark rapped his 35-foot putt and immediately rose from his crouch, worried it might have too much pace down the slope on the 18th green Friday in the U.S. Open. It curled into the side of the cup for a final birdie and another standard he set at Shinnecock Hills.

It wasn’t his best putt, just another birdie for a 1-under 69, and it summed up his week.

Clark doesn’t feel he is playing his best, but he’s four shots ahead going into the weekend with the lowest 36-hole score — 7-under 133 — for a U.S. Open at fearsome Shinnecock Hills.

“Hopefully, I can bring my A-game on the weekend,” Clark said.

His four-shot lead was the largest at a U.S. Open through 36 holes since Dustin Johnson led by four at Shinnecock Hills the last time it was here in 2018. That didn’t end well for Johnson when the USGA lost control of the frightening greens on Saturday.

What now?

The USGA promised it wouldn’t let the course get away like it did in the third round in 2018 and the final round in 2004, when the average score on the last day was 78.7 and no one broke par. Shinnecock began to bake under a warm sun late Friday afternoon, with more of the same — and stronger wind — in the forecast.

“The golf course can change pretty quickly, and so a lot of that depends on do they want to water the greens, how fast they want to get them, where is the wind direction coming from, can they get them much quicker,” said Scottie Scheffler, who kept the career Grand Slam in play.

Scheffler ended his drought of 10 straight U.S. rounds without breaking par with a steady diet of fairways and greens for a 68, leaving him seven shots behind.

“We’ll see what they want to do,” Scheffler said. “My job is to out there and play it.”

Clark is getting the job done. He returned Friday morning and made two pars to complete a 64, the lowest start to a U.S. Open at Shinnecock. Then he delivered two birdie putts in the 30-foot range along the back nine to pull further ahead.

“I really felt like I could be in double digits (under par),” Clark said. “But you know, the great thing about that is I didn’t feel like I had my best, and I still am leading as of right now.”

Xander Schauffele, with the best U.S. Open record of anyone without a U.S. Open title over the last 10 years, had a 66 to finish at 137 along with Matt Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. Open champion who birdied two of his last three holes to salvage a 70.

They were joined at 137 in the afternoon, when the course began to dry, by Sam Stevens (69) and Tom Kim (67).

Rory McIlroy was closing on Clark until starting the back nine with three straight bogeys, and erasing a pair of birdies by chipping from the back of 15th green into a bunker and making double bogey. He shot 71 and joined Scheffler in the group at even-par 140.

So much depends on Clark. Maybe more depends on Shinnecock.

“If there’s a course where you feel like you still have a chance if you’re seven back going into the weekend like I am, it’s definitely this one,” McIlroy said.

It’s a better chance than Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, the two biggest stars from LIV Golf who missed the cut. DeChambeau left early from his third straight major. Rahm, a runner-up at the PGA Championship last month, went 21 holes without a bogey. But he shot 41 on the back nine for a 78 to match his highest U.S. Open score, last shot at Shinnecock Hills in 2018.

The most remarkable day belonged to Joaquin Niemann. He made a 9 on No. 6 — his 15th and final hole of the fog-delayed first round that was halted by darkness — only for it to become an 11 when the USGA penalized two shots for bad behavior.

Niemann hit two drives off the property, chopped his way up the fairway and finally lost it by heaving his club. The USGA deemed it serious enough to skip the warning and go straight to the harsh two-shot penalty, giving him a 78.

Niemann headed out for his second round, made five birdies in six holes and shot 65 to make it to the weekend at 3-over 143. It was the first time in 97 years at the U.S. Open someone made 10 or worse in a U.S. Open and still make the cut.

“All the frustration that came inside me and had my club in my hand, and I couldn’t resist to throw it away,” Niemann said. “There was no people, obviously. No one there. I’m not proud of it, but yeah, sometimes all the expectation of trying to play well and things doesn’t go your way, you get frustrated. And that was me there.”

Collin Morikawa also shot 65 to match Niemann for the low score Friday, and was five behind. Justin Thomas and Sam Burns each shot 68 and were another shot back.

Clark was on a heater coming into Shinnecock Hills, winning The CJ Cup Byron Nelson with a 60 in the final round, contending in the Memorial and the Canadian Open the last two weeks. Frustration peaked a year ago at Oakmont and in the months that followed. Now, he appears to be more comfortable with each day.

“Momentum is a huge thing in golf, and I feel like I have it right now,” Clark said.

Schauffele has seven top 10s in his nine U.S. Open appearances, a Californian who keeps his cool even amid a tough test.

“It’s a brutal week,” Schauffele said. “Everyone watching at home wants to see guys shooting in the 80s and doing crazy things. I get it. You know, it’s once a year you get to see some carnage, and it’s at a U.S. Open. Try to embrace it as much as you can.”

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

SEATTLE (AP) — U.S. star Christian Pulisic will miss Friday’s World Cup match against Australia because of a calf injury and was replaced in the starting lineup by Ricardo Pepi.

United States coach Mauricio Pochettino made the announcement during an interview with Fox about 90 minutes before the kickoff at Lumen Field in Seattle. On Thursday, Pochettino said Pulisic is in a “much better” spot than he was last Friday, and that he would be available for the Americans’ next game against Turkey if he could not play against Australia.

“Today, he was training in the morning in the camp and I’ve seen the feelings are good,” Pochettino told Fox on Friday. “I hope as soon as possible he can be ready to be selected again and to be part of the team. Now, we need to be focused on our team and the players that are going to play.”

The move is a setback for a U.S. team that defeated Paraguay 4-1 in its opener on June 12 and with a win would clinch advancement to the round of 32.

Pulisic left the game at halftime after helping create the opening goal by splitting a pair of defenders before passing to Weston McKennie, then setting up Folarin Balogun for the second goal.

Pochettino said the 27-year-old attacker was kicked in the back of his left calf during a training session ahead of the game and felt tightness during the match. Pulisic trained on his own in the leadup to the game against Australia.

Pulisic has 33 goals in 87 international appearances.

Pepi was the only addition to the U.S. starting lineup. Pochettino decided to insert the 23-year-old striker, who was one of the final cuts from the 2022 World Cup roster, over a few other accomplished players.

Brenden Aaronson, a winger who had four goals and five assists for Leeds last season, and Tim Weah, a Marseille forward who can impact a game with his speed on either wing, both remain on the bench.

Gio Reyna, who scored the Americans’ final goal against Paraguay and has provided moments of dynamic playmaking from the wing, will be a reserve once again.

With Pepi in for Pulisic, the U.S. hopes to reward its supporters and justify the wave of momentum that is building around the team.

“What excites me is that the entire world, the entire nation is behind us,” midfielder Cristian Roldan said. “I think that they enjoyed watching us play, and at the end of the day what we want to do is inspire and motivate the next generation. … We have to build off it, and that’s the truth. We can’t just talk about it: We have to show out against Australia.”

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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/fifa-world-cup

TAMPA, Florida (AP) — Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha will have his family close by when his team takes on Uruguay on Sunday, days after his standout performance against Spain turned him into one of the most talked about players of the World Cup.

The 40-year-old was named player of the match in Cape Verde’s goalless draw on Monday, a display that brought him international attention and a surge in popularity on social media.

Among the fans cheering him on in the U.S. are his father, Jose Pedro Dias, and brother, Delmiro Évora Nascimento, who also is a soccer player. Vozinha’s mother, who had initially faced difficulties obtaining a visa, is also expected to arrive in the United States ahead of Sunday’s game.

Speaking before Thursday’s training session at Cape Verde’s training base in Tampa, Vozinha said having his family nearby was one of the most meaningful aspects of his World Cup experience.

“They always support me in everything I do, so having my mother here is something special. My father is here too, and my brother as well, so I’m very happy,” he said.

Vozinha’s full name is Josimar José Évora Dias. His father said he was named after Josimar, a defender in Brazil’s squad in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

“I watched the matches and fell in love with the Brazilian national team,” Dias said. “I really enjoyed it and there were a few players who stood out; one of them was Josimar, a right-back, who scored two goals and really made his mark at that World Cup.”

Like other fans cheering on the team at its training base in Tampa, Dias was beaming with pride over Cape Verde’s successful start to its first ever World Cup.

“As a father, I feel immense pride. All Cape Verdeans right now feel proud to be Cape Verdean and of Cape Verde’s current performance; it’s something we could never have imagined would be possible,” he said.

Vozinha’s brother agreed.

“I’ve no words to describe this moment,” he said. “We just have to live it because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment for a professional footballer – to be at the World Cup, to play against Spain, to put in the performance he did.”

RVs full of Cape Verde fans, dressed in the blue of the nation’s flag and adorned with matching beach hats and flags as capes, arrived in the small parking lot outside the training ground in Tampa.

One of them, Benjamin Ferrera, called the draw with Spain “unbelievable.”

“I don’t have words for it, because nobody expected it. We are just 500,000 people on small islands. To be on this type of stage with the world watching us is just magnificent,” he said.

Ferrera was born in Cape Verde but now lives in Massachusetts, which hosts the largest portion of the Cape Verdean diaspora in the United States and is sometimes called Cape Verde’s 11th island.

He is also part of the security team at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, one of the host venues at this year’s tournament.

“We’re all about joy,” Ferrera said. “When I grew up, I always heard that Cape Verde doesn’t have football, that we would never make a World Cup. Today I’m proud to say we’re here and we are going to make history.”

The archipelago nation off the west coast of Africa was the only one of the four debutants at the tournament to avoid defeat in its first game. If you ask Andreia Levy, an organizer for the Cape Verde supporters’ group, 12 Sharks, it was fate.

“Of course, I trusted the guys,” she said. “We knew that it was possible to do something here.”

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Zach Pascuzzi is a student in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.

SEATTLE (AP) — Cristian Roldan is familiar with how loud Lumen Field can get.

The U.S. midfielder has played for the Seattle Sounders since 2015, getting plenty of love from fans in this soccer-crazed Pacific Northwest city.

With the Americans coming off a 4-1 victory over Paraguay in their World Cup opener in Southern California, Roldan is expecting a charged atmosphere on Friday when the Americans face Australia at the home of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.

“I fully expect this crowd to be extremely loud. And, they’re going to energize our group,” Roldan said. “This is one of the loudest stadiums in the world when you think about Seahawks games or Sounders games.

“Just seeing the Belgium game against Egypt and how the atmosphere was there, I fully expect the city of Seattle to come out and show out, and I think the guys are going to feel that type of energy.”

The Americans want to reward their supporters and justify the wave of momentum that is building around the team.

“What excites me is that the entire world, the entire nation is behind us,” Roldan said. “I think that they enjoyed watching us play, and at the end of the day what we want to do is inspire and motivate the next generation. … We have to build off it, and that’s the truth. We can’t just talk about it: We have to show out against Australia.”

The Americans’ excitement is somewhat tempered by concerns about their biggest star. Coach Mauricio Pochettino announced Friday morning that Christian Pulisic would not play in the match. Pulisic had trained apart from his teammates on Thursday for the fourth straight day because of his left calf injury.

The Socceroos also pose a significant challenge. In October, the U.S. earned a hard-fought 2-1 victory against a physical Australia side in a friendly that Pochettino said was anything but.

Pochettino wants his team to match Australia’s intensity.

“I think we need to play on the edge of the line,” Pochettino said, “with not crossing the lines of the rules.”

Australia center back Harry Souttar anticipates the U.S. will try to start fast, much as it did against Paraguay. Coach Tony Popovic’s scrappy squad opened with a 2-0 victory over Turkey on Saturday.

“We want to earn our respect,” Popovic said. “We know that by our performances, we can put Australian football on the world map. And, that’s what we aim to do. We started off well against Turkey. Now, we want to back it up.”

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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/fifa-world-cup