- Pakistan at 23-1 after Brook triple hundred takes England to 823-7
- Zelensky meets Starmer, Rutte on whirlwind tour of Europe
- South Korean same-sex couples make push for marriage equality
- Rafael Nadal calls time on epic tennis career
- Mumbai declares day of mourning for Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
- Philippines confronts China over South China Sea at ASEAN meet
- Kim Sei-young shoots 62 to take two-stroke lead at LPGA Shanghai
- The haircuts that help traumatised Ukrainian soldiers heal
- Sinner crushes Medvedev to set up potential Alcaraz Shanghai semi
- 7-Eleven owner restructures to fight takeover
- England's Harry Brook blasts triple century against Pakistan
- Chinese electric car companies cope with European tariffs
- Zelensky in London for whirlwind tour of Europe ahead of US vote
- Sri Lanka recovering faster than expected: World Bank
- Hong Kong, Shanghai rally as most markets track Wall St record
- Record-breaking Root, Brook both pass 200 as England pile up 658-3
- Football mourns Greek defender George Baldock's shock death at 31
- Uniqlo owner reports record annual earnings
- Hong Kong, Shanghai rally as markets track Wall St record
- Indonesia biomass drive threatens key forests: report
- Home is far away for Madagascar in AFCON qualifying
- Two months on, Donbas soldiers begin to question Kursk offensive
- Rugby Australia to counter-sue in dispute with Melbourne Rebels
- Mumbai mourns Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
- Philippines challenges China over South China Sea at ASEAN meet
- Mets advance on Lindor blast, Dodgers stay alive in MLB playoffs
- Injury-ravaged Krygios aiming to return at Australian Open
- Greek international Baldock, dead at 31: family
- EU talks deportation hubs to stem migration
- Deaths and repression sideline Suu Kyi's party ahead of Myanmar vote
- S. Africa offers a lesson on how not to shut down a coal plant
- China opens $71 bn 'swap facility' to boost markets
- Mets advance on Lindor grand slam, Yankees and Tigers win
- Taiwan President Lai vows to 'resist annexation' of island
- China's solar goes from supremacy to oversupply
- Asian markets track Wall St record as Hong Kong, Shanghai stabilise
- 'Denying my potential': women at Japan's top university call out gender imbalance
- China's central bank says opens up $70.6 bn in liquidity to boost market
- Zelensky on whirlwind tour of Europe ahead of US vote
- Youth facing unprecedented wave of violence, UN envoy warns
- 'A casino in every kitchen': Brazil's online gambling craze
- Nobel chemistry winner sees engineered proteins solving tough problems
- Lindor powers Mets past Phillies into NL Championship Series
- Wildlife populations plunge 73% since 1970: WWF
- 'Sleeper agent' bots on X fuel US election misinformation, study says
- Death toll rises to 109 after Haiti gang attack, official says
- Tigers beat Guardians and on brink of advancing in MLB playoffs
- Argentina MPs back Milei's veto of university funding
- Man City sink Barca in Women's Champions League as Bayern outgun Arsenal
- Greek international Baldock, 31, found dead in pool: state agency
Morikawa, Hovland chase World No.1 spot at PGA Valspar
Playing partners Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland, the world's number two and three players, will be chasing the summit of the global rankings at the US PGA Valspar Championship starting Thursday.
Five of the world's 10 top players will compete at Innisbrook's par-71 Copperhead course at Palm Harbor, Florida, with Spain's Jon Rahm in jeopardy of losing the number one spot.
American Morikawa, the reigning British Open champion and 2021 PGA Championship winner, and Norway's Hovland, who won at Mayakoba in November and the World Challenge in December, are each at the highest ranking of their respective careers.
Morikawa or Hovland, together in Thursday and Friday groups, would become world number one for the first time with a victory. Morikawa would take the top spot with as low as a three-way share of second -- provided Hovland isn't the winner.
"It would be huge," Morikawa said. "It would be definitely a part of my career I would remember but I want to stay there as well.
"Anyone would love to get there and everyone would see the satisfaction in the work and everything you have put in. But whether I get there next week or whether I get there whenever or whether I don't get there, the work is not going to stop because I feel I can still get better.
"I want to be the best in the world but that's going to require a lot of consistency, a lot of other areas of my game to be a little more consistent. I've shown it in certain events where I'm able to put it together but I want to keep doing that, keep working on those little things."
Morikawa said thoughts of taking the top spot have snuck into his thoughts and prevented his best efforts in prior events.
"I think the biggest thing for me is just I need to focus on this week," he said. "I say that every time, but there have been times where it crept in, where you think about world number one, you think about what I need to do.
"I really want to focus on (winning) this week because I want to win. It feels like it has been a while."
- Consistency 'very hard' -
American Justin Thomas, ranked eighth, became world number one for just over a month in 2018. The 2017 PGA Championship winner appreciates the feat of reaching the top spot since he hasn't been there in a while.
"It feels like a really long time," Thomas said.
"I've looked at it before, especially in terms of the points that I've had. There's a lot of years and a lot of months and weeks where I would have had the number one in the world ranking at other times. But that's unfortunate. It doesn't matter. It's an irrelevant kind of thing.
"I just think it's really a huge accomplishment and it's very hard to get to. I don't think I under-appreciated how hard it was to get there. I may have under-appreciated how hard it is to stay there.
"To just consistently be that consistent, that good, all the time is something that's very, very hard to do."
Australian Cameron Smith, coming off a victory on Monday in the final round of the Players Championship, withdrew from next week's WGC Match Play event, saying he wanted to rest and spend more time with his mother and sister in their first time together in more than two years.
M.Thompson--AMWN