Si Woo Kim leads by 1 at Hilton Head with Justin Thomas lurking

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — The vibe at Hilton Head Island is all about ease and relaxation. It felt like anything but that to Justin Thomas on Saturday in the RBC Heritage.

His two-shot lead was gone in two holes, partly because he of a one-shot penalty on the par-5 second hole when he informed the rules official his golf ball might have moved a little more than a dimple (it did).

His worst swing of the day on the 11th hole put him in shallow water inside a red hazard line. He tried to play the shot and barely moved it 15 yards, but not before the mud and muck splashed into his face and led his caddie to tell him he smelled like a wet dog (he did).

“That didn’t seem worth it,” Thomas said, loud enough for the gallery to hear and to laugh.

Thomas at least ended the day on a high note, rolling in a 15-foot birdie putt on the 18th to make up ground on Si Woo Kim, who played bogey-free until the final hole at Harbour Town.

By then, Kim had done enough to still post a 5-under 66 and take a one-shot lead over Thomas (69) and Andrew Novak (66).

“When you win golf tournaments, you need to salvage under-par rounds when you don’t have your best stuff,” Thomas said. “I just fought and tried to stay patient and then was able to salvage a score to where I’m right there tomorrow.”

Kim didn't exactly have that peaceful feeling when he headed to the first tee, two behind Thomas and without a win in two years.

“It’s been a while to play in the final group, so it feels weird. Then a little bit of maybe pressure,” Kim said. “Not the pressure, a little bit like feel weird at the start.”

He started birdie-birdie to catch Thomas. He took the lead when Thomas had his mud-filled adventures on the 11th and made bogey. Kim stretched the lead to as many as three shots until it suddenly got tight again.

Novak birdied the par-3 17th to complete his bogey-free round. And there was a two-shot swing from the final group when Kim came up short of the 18th green and just into the hazard, from here we chopped out of mangled grass and missed the par putt.

“I played great — only missed the last hole, so that’s not a big deal,” Kim said. “So I play pretty much 35 holes really decent. So I’m not going to worry about the last hole for tomorrow. I’m in good position. I’ve been playing good.”

And Thomas made his birdie.

“It was huge,” he said. “I played really well today, really solid. Just didn’t have much to show. The course is getting very difficult, very firm and fast. ... Yeah, it was nice to see an iron shot get up there pin-high and roll that putt in there. It’s nice to finish off like that and ride that momentum into tomorrow.”

Kim was at 15-under 198.

Maverick McNealy shot 64 and was alone in fourth, two shots behind. He was followed by former British Open champion Brian Harman (66) and Tommy Fleetwood, who had three birdies over his last six holes for a 68.

Defending champion Scottie Scheffler had a rough stretch early on the back nine that derailed his momentum, though he still managed a 68 and was very much in the game at only four shots out of the lead.

Scheffler hit a brilliant escape from the trees, the ball never gaining more than 10 feet of altitude from 160 yards away, but it was too strong and rolled against the lip of a bunker, leaving him no shot. He had to make an 8-foot putt to salvage bogey.

He went long of the green on No. 12 and left himself a fast pitch (bogey) and then hit a demanding lob wedge over the bunker to 3 feet on No. 13 and missed the putt.

The weather has been getting warmer and windier by the day, enough to make the course fast and crispy and enough movement in the trees to cause some second-guessing. There are low scores available. It doesn't take much for players to lose momentum.

This is a signature event with no cut and the scoring average has been roughly the same all three days. It's a matter of gets on a roll, who holes putts and who limits mistakes.

For so much of Saturday, that was Kim.

He opened with a pair of 6-foot birdie putts. He handled the par 5s. His longest birdie putt was on the par-5 15th when he got out of position and had to make an 18-footer.

Thomas says he is capable of ending his three-year drought and simply needs the tournament to unfold instead of forcing the issue. This was only a 69 but important to him because he managed a round under par when it felt like nothing was going right, except at the end.

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

Maverick McNealy hits from the second hole during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Brian Harman lines up a putt on the second hole during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Tommy Fleetwood hits from the third hole during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Scottie Scheffler watches his shot from the bunker on the second hole during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Scottie Scheffler prepares to hit from the seventh tee during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Andrew Novak hits from the second hole during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Justin Thomas departs the 18th green during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Justin Thomas speaks with an official from the second fairway during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Justin Thomas hits from the 18th green during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Si Woo Kim hits from the 18th tee during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Si Woo Kim putts on the 18th green during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Si Woo Kim walks to the 16th green during the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Wildlife crews are no longer actively searching for two juvenile gray wolves who were part of a pack that killed dozens of cows and calves last summer in Northern California’s Sierra Valley, an official said Tuesday.

The two wolves were members of the Beyem Seyo pack that in 2025 killed or injured at least 92 calves and cows in a seven-month period, according to a report released last week by two researchers with the University of California, Davis.

Wolves in the state are protected under California law and the federal Endangered Species Act. Under former President Joe Biden, officials said they planned a first-ever national recovery plan for wolves, but President Donald Trump’s administration ended that initiative in November.

In October, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it had euthanized four gray wolves — three adults and a juvenile — from the Beyem Seyo pack after “an unprecedented level of livestock attacks across the Sierra Valley” by a single wolf pack since the canids returned to the state. It also said it planned to capture and relocate the remaining two wolves to wildlife facilities to prevent their behavior from spreading to other wolves in California.

Gray wolves primarily prey on wild animals like deer and elk, not livestock, but the pack became used to killing cows and calves, the department said.

“These wolves had become habituated to preying on cattle, a feeding pattern that persisted and was being taught to their offspring which would leave to form their own packs and could teach them the same cattle-preying behavior,” the department said at the time.

But following weeks of searching for the remaining two wolves, officials have “reduced efforts to capture” them, Katie Talbot, CDFW Deputy Director of Public Affairs, said in a statement.

“Despite best efforts from CDFW’s expert wolf biologists and law enforcement officers, we have not been able to find or get close enough to these young wolves to safely capture them,” Talbot said.

“We remain hopeful our continued remote monitoring will allow for sightings that will lead to safe capture of these juveniles," she added.

Talbot said that CDFW crews will be working this week on capturing wolves and collaring them throughout the state, including in the Sierra Valley.

Wildlife officials tried for months to prevent the pack from attacking farm animals by using drones, nonlethal bean bags, installing flags or rope to deter them and having officers in the field 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but their efforts failed.

“The efforts that the (CDFW) made were tremendous and heroic but it was too late.” said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.

She said that cattle ranchers in the area should have been taking proactive prevention measures for years, including increased human presence around the cattle, keeping the livestock bunched up instead of letting them loose on large grazing pastures, and calving at the same time of year that deer and elk are birthing so wolves have a source of wild prey.

“Ranchers in California have been on notice that wolves were coming since late December 2011, when we got our first wolf. They have been on notice they would establish packs since 2015,” when the first pack was confirmed in Siskiyou County, Weiss said.

Gray wolves were eradicated in California early in the last century because of their perceived threat to livestock, with the last known native wolf killed in 1924 in Lassen County. Since their reintroduction in Idaho and at Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, they’ve proliferated throughout the West. The recovering population has meant increasing conflict with ranchers.

“It was a horrible summer here for everybody and the emotional strain was probably worse than the financial strain for most people. They did the right thing. We couldn’t go on living the way we were living,” said Rick Roberti, a cattle rancher in Plumas County and president of the California Cattlemen’s Association, who lost several animals.

Economist Tina Saitone and researcher Tracy Schohr said in UC Davis’ quarterly agricultural economics update released Friday that the Beyem Seyo pack killed more livestock than the entire wolf population of Montana killed in 2024 and the killings of farm animals by the wolves in Wyoming in 2023.

In Montana, the state’s 1,100 wolves killed 54 domestic animals in 2024, and Wyoming’s 352 wolves killed 49 livestock in 2023, the scientists said.

In California, about 70 gray wolves were responsible for 175 livestock kills between January and October of last year, with the Beyem Seyo pack responsible for half of the killings, according to CDFW data.

Roberti said the attacks on livestock in Plumas and Sierra counties left many ranchers angry. He said he would like to see certain areas in the state declared “special zones” where people are allowed to hunt wolves that attack livestock.

“We’re pretty much in unison about thinking that it would help if we started taking out the ones that are just killing cattle and are too habituated to man or they’re not afraid of us,” he said.

The predators are a long way from recovery, Weiss said, adding that killing them is not a long-term solution.

“The scientific literature is pretty conclusory that killing wolves to resolve conflicts with livestock is not a solution. It can actually be counterproductive. It can result in there being more conflicts with livestock," she said.

FILE - This remote camera image provided by the U.S. Forest Service shows a female gray wolf and two of the three pups born in 2017 in the wilds of Lassen National Forest in northern California on June 29, 2017. (U.S. Forest Service via AP, File)