AP Sportlight

July 15

1912 - Jim Thorpe wins the decathlon at the Stockholm Olympics. At the closing ceremony, Sweden’s King Gustav proclaims Thorpe the world’s greatest athlete.

1922 - Gene Sarazen closes with a 68 to beat out Bobby Jones and John Black for the U.S. Open golf championship.

1923 - Amateur Bobby Jones beats Bobby Cruikshank by two strokes in a playoff to win the U.S. Open golf title.

1945 - Byron Nelson defeats Sam Byrd in the final round to capture the PGA.

1961 - Arnold Palmer shoots a 284 at Royal Birkdale to win his first British Open title.

1967 - Argentina’s Roberto DeVicenzo wins the British Open by two strokes over defending champion Jack Nicklaus.

1972 - Lee Trevino wins his second consecutive British Open title by beating Jack Nicklaus by one stroke.

1978 - Jack Nicklaus shoots a 281 at St. Andrews to win his third and final British Open.

1984 - Hollis Stacy wins her third U.S. Women’s Open golf title, beating Rosie Jones by one stroke.

1990 - Betsy King overcomes an 11-shot deficit over the final 33 holes to win her second consecutive U.S. Women’s Open. Patty Sheehan blows an eight-shot lead over the final 23 holes.

1991 - Sandhi Ortiz-DelValle becomes the first woman to officiate a men’s professional basketball game, working a U.S. Basketball League game between the New Haven Skyhawks and the Philadelphia Spirit.

2000 - Lennox Lewis stops Francois Botha at 2:39 of the second round to retain his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles in London.

2005 - Michelle Wie misses a chance to play in the Masters when BYU junior Clay Ogden birdies four of the first five holes and never lets up in handing the 15-year-old high school junior a 5-and-4 loss in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur Public Links. The loss ends Wie’s hopes of winning the men’s Publinx, which would have allowed her to become the first woman to get an invitation to the Masters.

2007 - Se Ri Pak wins the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic to tie an LPGA Tour record by winning the same tournament five times. Pak, also the Farr winner in 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2003, matches Mickey Wright, who won the Sea Island Open in 1957-58, ’60, ‘62-’63, and Annika Sorenstam, who has won the Samsung World Championship and Mizuno Classic five times each.

2007 - BYU star Daniel Summerhays becomes the first amateur winner in Nationwide Tour history. Summerhays scores a two-stroke victory over Chad Collins and Chris Nallen in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Invitational.

2007 - The Philadelphia Phillies lose their 10,000 game, 10-2 to St. Louis. The franchise, born in 1883 as the Philadelphia Quakers and later called the Blue Jays in the mid-1940s, fall to 8,810-10,000.

2010 - Rory McIlroy, a 21-year-old from Northern Ireland, ties the major championship record by shooting a 9-under 63 in the opening round of the British Open at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.

2010 - Caster Semenya wins her first race since being cleared to return to competition after undergoing gender tests, winning the 800 meters in a modest time against a weak field at a low-key meet in Finland.

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July 16

1920 - Babe Ruth breaks his own season record of 29 homers with his 30th, and the New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns, 5-2. Ruth ends the season with 54.

1920 - The United States sweeps Australia in five straight matches to win the Davis Cup for the first time since 1913. The U.S. team is made up of Bill Tilden and Bill Johnston.

1938 - Paul Runyan wins the PGA golf championship by routing Sam Snead 8 and 7 in the final round.

1947 - Rocky Graziano scores a technical knockout with a barrage of 30 punches against Tony Zale in the sixth round to win the world middleweight boxing title. Held in Chicago Stadium, it’s the largest grossing fight in history.

1950 - Uruguay beats Brazil 2-1 to win soccer’s World Cup in Rio de Janeiro.

1989 - Betsy King birdies three of the first four holes of the final round to win her first U.S. Women’s Open championship by four strokes over Nancy Lopez.

1993 - Nick Faldo ties the best single round in 122 years of the British Open with a course-record 63 to give him a one-stroke lead after the second round.

1995 - Annika Sorenstam of Sweden wins the U.S. Women’s Open by one stroke over Meg Mallon, her first victory on the LPGA Tour.

2001 - Jacques Rogge, a Belgian surgeon and Olympic sailor, is elected to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch as president of the International Olympic Committee.

2005 - In Las Vegas, Jermain Taylor beats Bernard Hopkins for the undisputed middleweight title. Hopkins, a winner of a record 20 consecutive defenses, starts slowly and the undefeated challenger builds up a big enough lead on two judges’ scorecards to take the crown.

2006 - J.R. Todd becomes the first black driver to win an NHRA Top Fuel event, beating Tony Schumacher in the Mopar Mile-High Nationals.

2010 - American sprinters who were stripped of their 2000 Olympics relay medals because teammate Marion Jones was doping win an appeal to have them restored. The Court of Arbitration for Sport rules in favor of the women, who had appealed the International Olympic Committee’s decision to disqualify them from the Sydney Games. In Sydney, Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander Clark and Andrea Anderson were part of the squad that won gold in the 4x400 relay. Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson were on the 4x100 bronze medal squad.

2011 - Kyle Busch wins the Nationwide race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to become the third driver to win 100 races in NASCAR’s three national series. Busch, with 22 Cup victories and 29 Trucks wins, also ties Mark Martin for first place in career Nationwide Series victories with 49. Richard Petty and David Pearson are the other drivers with have at least 100 wins.

2012 - Roger Federer surpasses Pete Sampras to set the record for the most weeks at No. 1 in the ATP rankings. After winning Wimbledon a week ago - his 75th career ATP title - Federer returns to the top for the first time since June 2010. Today marks his 287th week at No. 1, one more than Sampras.

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July 17

1939 - Henry Picard beats Byron Nelson 1-up in 37 holes to win the PGA championship.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak of 56 games is stopped by Al Smith and Jim Bagby of the Indians before 67,000 at Cleveland.

1955 - Beverly Hanson beats Louise Suggs by three strokes in a playoff to capture the first LPGA championship.

1966 - Jim Ryun becomes the first American to hold the record in the mile since 1937. With a time of 3:51.3 at Berkeley, Calif., Ryun shatters Michel Jazy’s mark of 3:53.6 by 2.3 seconds.

1974 - Bob Gibson strikes out Cesar Geronimo of the Reds in the second inning to become the second pitcher in major league history with 3,000 strikeouts.

1979 - Sebastian Coe breaks the world record in the mile with a time of 3:48.95 in Oslo, Norway. The time is rounded up to 3:49.

1983 - Bobby Hebert passes for 314 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Michigan Panthers to a 24-22 win over the Philadelphia Stars in the first USFL championship game.

1983 - Tom Watson wins his second straight and fifth career British Open title. Watson shoots a 9-under 275 at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England to finish one stroke ahead of Andy Bean and Hale Irwin.

1994 - Brazil wins a record fourth World Cup soccer title, taking the first shootout in championship game history over Italy.

2005 - Tiger Woods records another ruthless performance at St. Andrews, closing with a 2-under 70 to win the British Open for his 10th career major. He wins by five shots, the largest margin in any major since Woods won by eight at St. Andrews five years ago. He joins Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win the career Grand Slam twice.

2006 - Stacey Nuveman and Lovieanne Jung each homer to power the United States to the World Cup of Softball title with a 5-2 victory over Japan.

2008 - Drugs hit the Tour de France again, and the third doping bust nets the biggest name yet: Italy’s Riccardo Ricco, a winner of two stages. All three busts involve the performance enhancer EPO, cycling’s drug of choice. His Saunier-Duval team withdraws from the Tour and suspends all activities.

2011 - Japan stuns the United States in a riveting Women’s World Cup final, winning 3-1 on penalty kicks after coming from behind twice in a 2-2 tie. Goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori makes two brilliant saves in the shootout. Japan, making its first appearance in the final of a major tournament, hadn’t beaten the Americans in their first 25 meetings.

2015 - Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba sets a world record in the women’s 1,500 meters at a Diamond League meeting in Monaco. Dibaba crosses the line in 3:50.07, eclipsing the long-standing mark of 3:50.46 set by China’s Qu Yunxia in 1993.

2016 - Henrik Stenson shoots an 8-under 63 to beat Phil Mickelson by three strokes, becoming the first man from Sweden to win the British Open.

2018 - Houston teammates Alex Bregman and George Springer homer on consecutive pitches from the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Ross Stripling to start the 10th inning, part of a record 10 long balls in all, and the American League beats the NL 8-6 to extend its All-Star Game winning streak to six.

2018 - Liz Cambage scores a WNBA single-game record 53 points to help the Dallas Wings beat the New York Liberty 104-87. Cambage breaks Riquna Williams’ WNBA record of 51 points, set Sept. 8, 2013.

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