SILVIS, Ill. (AP) — Brian Campbell won for the second time this year on the PGA Tour, both in a playoff, when he closed with a 4-under 67 and beat Emiliano Grillo with a par on the first extra hole Sunday in the John Deere Classic.
It extended the win-or-bust season for Campbell, who won the Mexico Open in a playoff in late February. He has finished out of the top 30 every tournament except for his two victories.
This one might be enough to get him into the British Open, depending on how high up he moves in the world ranking published Monday, traditionally used as the alternate list.
Grillo, who also closed with a 67, took the lead when Campbell made double bogey on 15, only to three-putt for bogey on the 16th.
Campbell, one of the shorter hitters on tour, blasted a 3-wood to 18 feet for a two-putt birdie on the par-5 17th and narrowly missed a 25-foot birdie on the 18th. He was the first player to post at 18-under 266.
Grillo got up-and-down for birdie on the 17th, holing an 8-foot putt, and caught a bad break on the 18th when his drive settled into a divot. He hit wedge to just inside 40 feet and two-putted for par to join Campbell at 266.
David Lipsky was poised to join them when he hit a punch 3-wood to 8 feet for eagle on the 17th to tie for the lead. But he hooked his drive on the 18th, couldn’t reach the green, and his 15-foot par putt to get into the playoff caught the left lip and spun away. He shot 68 and tied for third with Kevin Roy (65).
MUNICH (AP) — Daniel Brown was in tears after winning the BMW International Open by two strokes, days after the death of a close friend.
The No. 170-ranked Brown shot a bogey-free 6-under 66 in the final round to capture his second European tour title, after the ISPS Handa World Invitational in 2023. It was his first top 10 since February.
After making his sixth and final birdie of the day at the par-5 18th, Brown walked off the green and started to cry. The Englishman said a close friend died last weekend and that was his motivation to win at Golfclub München Eichenried.
Brown started the day with a one-shot lead over Jordan Smith (67), birdied four of his first six holes, and picked up two more birdies coming home to finish on 22-under par for the week.
MAYNOOTH, Ireland (AP) — Lottie Woad of England became the first amateur in three years to win a Ladies European Tour title, closing with a 4-under 69 for a six-shot victory in the Women’s Irish Open.
Woad, the world No. 1 amateur, entered the final round with a seven-stroke lead.
The 21-year-old Woad just completed her junior year at Florida State and won the Augusta National Women's Amateur in 2023. She finished at 21-under par, six shots ahead of Madelene Sagstrom of Sweden.
The last amateur winner of an LET event was Jana Melichova in the 2022 Czech Ladies Open.
Scott Vincent of Zimbabwe closed with a 3-under 70 for a four-shot victory over Danthai Boonma in the International Series Morocco on the Asian Tour. ... Maximilian Steinlechner of Austria won his first Challenge Tour title when he closed with a 5-under 69 for a two-shot victory over Filippo Celli of Italy in the Interwetten Open. ... David Perkins closed with a 4-under 67 and won the Explore NB Open in Canada by one shot over Tripp Kinney for his first title on the PGA Tour Americas. ... Saki Nagamine made par on the 18th hole four times, first in regulation for a 2-under 70, and then three times in a sudden-death playoff before beating Megumi Kido in the Shiseido-JAL Ladies Open on the Japan LPGA. ... Hyejun Park closed with a 2-under 70 for a one-shot victory over Seunghui Ro in the Lotte Open on the Korea LPGA. ... Keith Horne of South Africa had a third consecutive 4-under 68 and won the inaugural Reignwood Legends Championship in Beijing on the European Legends Tour.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Britain's Daniel Brown competes during the European Tour - International Golf Open in Munich, Germany, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (Harry Langer/dpa via AP)
Britain's Daniel Brown poses with the winner's trophy for the European Tour - International Golf Open in Munich, Germany, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (Harry Langer/dpa via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.
West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.
The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.
Decisions are expected by early summer.
President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.
Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.
“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”
She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.
Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.
She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.
Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.
“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.
Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.
The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.
About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.
"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”
But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.
“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”
Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”
“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.
One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.
Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”
The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.
The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.
The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.
The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.
If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.
“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.
Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)
