Jon Rahm breaks title drought at LIV Hong Kong

Jon Rahm captured his first individual tournament win since September 2024 on Sunday, carding a 64 for a three-stroke victory at LIV Golf Hong Kong.

Tied with Harold Varner III and Belgium's Thomas Detry entering the round, Rahm took over on the back nine with birdies on four consecutive holes, giving himself enough cushion to withstand a bogey at No. 18. His final round put him at 23-under for the event at Hong Kong Golf Club in Fanling.

Also breaking a long title drought was the Dustin Johnson-led 4Aces, who grabbed their first team win in 974 days with their 58-under showing.

Rahm started the season with back-to-back runner-up finishes before hoisting the Hong Kong trophy.

"Very relieving," said Rahm, who has won the past two season-long individual titles. "That's the only way I can describe it. I've been very ecstatic for wins in the past. This one just feels like a big weight off my shoulder. That's all I can say."

Detry shot a 67 on Sunday to finish 20-under and in sole possession of second place. Fellow Belgian Thomas Pieters (66) was a stroke behind Detry in third place, and Varner (69) finished in fourth at 18-under. Matthew Wolff (65) was fifth.

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With the victory, Rahm snapped a streak of 26 events without an individual win, despite the success of his Legion XIII team.

"It's very fun when you can stand on that podium and celebrate with your teammates," Rahm said. "But as far as obviously being a competitor and as myself goes, I wanted to get this done. It feels different. I think I would be way more ecstatic if I was celebrating with my teammates for the win, like the Aces did today, but there's a sense of self-accomplishment and pride that goes with doing it myself."

The 4Aces won the team championship in 2022 and two event titles in 2023 but hadn't managed a win since. But buoyed by Detry and Pieters -- along with solid finishes by Johnson and Anthony Kim -- this week was different.

The group was 16-under on Sunday, led by a 65 from Johnson and a 66 from Kim.

"It's been a while since we've won, especially with the way we started, dominating, pretty much winning every single event, or if we didn't win, we were finishing second for the first couple years," Johnson said.

"Obviously since then, LIV as a whole, the players have gotten a lot stronger, a lot better. The teams have gotten stronger. So it's a lot harder to win. That's a little bit of a factor. I think this year we've put together a really good team, so I think we're going to be competing each and every week. So, I'm very happy with that."

--Field Level Media

byJastin Mags

in

March 08, 2026

Jon Rahm breaks title drought at LIV Hong Kong

Jon Rahm captured his first individual tournament win since September 2024 on Sunday, carding a 64 for a three-strok...

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Daughter of UFC legend Frank Mir wins NCAA wrestling championship

Bella Mir has added to her family's collection of championships.

Her dad Frank was twice the heavyweight champion of the UFC while helping the sport skyrocket in popularity during his 16-year career. He still holds the record for most submission victories in UFC's heavyweight division with eight.

And now Bella is writing her own history. On Saturday night inthe first-ever NCAA Tournament for women's collegiate wrestling, second-seeded Mir – wrestling for Division III North Central – upset No. 1 Reese Larramendy of Iowa with a 5-0 victory in the championship bout of the 145-pound weight class in Coralville, Iowa.

Mir built a 5-0 lead on Larramendy before delivering what would be the first-ever pin in an NCAA women's wrestling final. Mir was in control for much of the match and built that advantage up just 40 seconds into the bout against her former teammate – who handed Mir her only loss of the regular season — with a clinical takedown. Less than three minutes into the match, Mir pulled off a superb reversal of a takedown attempt by Larramendy to put on her back and secure the pin.

It ended a 35-match unbeaten streak for Larramendy.

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The 22-year-old who started her collegiate career at Iowa before transferring to North Central – located in Naperville, Illinois – didn't have a point scored against her at the NCAA championships. She won her opener 11-0, and then took 10-0 victories in the quarterfinals and semifinals.

North Central finished in third place in the overall team standings at the NCAA championships. Division II McKendree won the team title narrowly over second-place Iowa, which is the only Division I school from a Power 4 conference currently sponsoring women's wrestling at the varsity level.

Mir is viewed by many to be the next great women's mixed martial arts fighter in UFC. She's already a two-time world champion in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and owns a 4-0 record as a professional MMA fighter.

Bella was 5 years old when Frank won his second UFC title. Ever since then,she told ESPNin a recent interview, she's wanted one of her own.

"There's been really special people that have stood out in the history of the UFC and the sport," UFC president Dana White told ESPN. "And I truly believe that Bella will be one of those too."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Bella Mir, daughter of UFC legend Frank Mir, wins NCAA wrestling title

byJastin Mags

in

March 08, 2026

Daughter of UFC legend Frank Mir wins NCAA wrestling championship

Bella Mir has added to her family's collection of championships. Her dad Frank was twice the heavyweight...

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British TV Star Brenda Blethyn Brings Classic Novel “A Woman of Substance” to Screen

Brenda Blethyn teams with emerging star Jessica Reynolds in a new adaptation of A Woman of Substance

NEED TO KNOW

• The pair play Emma Harte at different stages of her rags-to-riches story

• The original TV show was broadcast in the U.S. in 1985 following Barbara Taylor Bradford's bestselling novel

For veteran actorBrenda Blethyn,playing the heroine in the new dramatization of 1980s blockbusterA Woman of Substancehad a poignant resonance.

Blethyn, who plays Emma Harte inBarbara Taylor Bradford's bestselling story and is most recognized stateside for her role as Mrs. Bennet in the 2005 adaptation ofPride & Prejudice, has roots in a similar background.

Like Emma, who starts out in life as a maid to a tyrannical family in an old country mansion, Blethyn's mother was also a kitchen maid. "Any story about someone who triumphs over adversity is good to do," Blethyn said at an exclusive screening in London.

"My mum started life as a skivvy in a big house, down in Kent [England] — it's where she met my dad — he was a chauffeur. She used to tell me loads of stories about how hard the work was. And, you know, for very little pay. She would work about three or four jobs a day to make ends meet," the actress said.

Blethyn, 80, added, "We were very, very poor growing up. But mum and dad always used to say you're as good as anybody else and if you work hard, you can achieve it," she told a screening in London. "That's the work ethic that Emma's mother instills upon her, saying the plan with the capital P is go for it, work hard."

Jessica Reynolds (OutlanderandHouse of Guinness) plays the younger version of Emma, emerging from poverty while working as a maid. Reynolds and Blethyn hadn't met until Blethyn headed to the Yorkshire hills to see Reynolds doing one of her scenes.

"Jessica came out of the house that was Emma's home, and we sort of looked at each other across the moor," she recalled adding she called out "Emma!" to her costar.

Reynolds — who calls her costar an "icon" — adds, "It really did feel quite romantic. It was a really beautiful moment. We didn't say much, but we gave each other a big hug, it was beautiful."

She talked about how she initially dismissed auditioning as she didn't think her Irish background would work for the producers. She thought there would be many other actresses who were "going up that are gonna be able to step up to that in a way that well, in my head, that I wouldn't be able to," she said.

After landing the role, Reynolds said she was "so immersed in her . . . I stayed in the accent. I was like speaking in a Yorkshire accent in my sleep, no joke like. One morning like I woke up in the middle of the night and started speaking in a Yorkshire accent."

"She was a real part of me and she, she goes through such a journey, such ups and downs." She said that her character and her were so "bound together" that she "wrote a wee note" to say goodbye to her.

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Another star of the production is the stunning and sometimes harsh Yorkshire countryside and producers have used the same country mansion – Broughton Hall – that doubled up as fictional Fairley Hall in the original TV version in the 1980s.

The eight-parter will be shown in the U.S. on Britbox in the coming months.Channel Fourwill broadcast the series in the U.K. on Mar. 11. An original adaptation of the book was an international hit in 1984 and 1985, starringJenny Seagroveand Deborah Kerr.

News of the new adaptation came in the wake of Barbara Taylor Bradford's death at 91 in November 2024.

While Bradford wasn't able to see the second dramatization of her first hit book, she had been aware of its production and took a keen interest in its early progress.

A Woman of Substancewas the book that made her a name internationally. Published in 1979, it stayed on theNew York Timesbestseller list for 43 weeks. She went on to write 39 other novels includingThree Weeks in Paris(2002),To Be the Best(1988), and her most recent titleThe Wonder of It All(November 2023), selling more than 90 million copies in total.

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The author was born in May 1933 and was raised in Leeds, Yorkshire, in northern England. A voracious reader, she was the only child in the city to be allowed two library cards, and sold her first short story to a magazine at age 10.

At 15, she left school to embark on her writing career and joined the U.K. newspaper,Yorkshire Evening Post. She became a reporter a year later and was named its first woman's editor by age 18.

At age 20, Taylor Bradford moved to London and worked as a columnist and editor on the British national newspapers. A pinnacle of her life was when the celebrated author was awarded an OBE for her services to literature byQueen Elizabeth IIin 2007.

In May 2025, much of her collection of jewelry, art — and even her typewriter — was auctioned.

Read the original article onPeople

byJastin Mags

in

March 08, 2026

British TV Star Brenda Blethyn Brings Classic Novel “A Woman of Substance” to Screen

Brenda Blethyn teams with emerging star Jessica Reynolds in a new adaptation of A Woman of Substance NEED TO ...

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