BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Sebastian Garcia completed his weather-delayed first round early Friday at Royal Queensland to finish with an 8-under 63 and a one-stroke lead at the Australian PGA Championship.
The Spanish golfer had completed 15 holes at 7-under on Thursday before a mid-afternoon thunderstorm delay. The weather delay and suspension meant about half the 156-player field were forced to complete their first rounds on Friday morning.
Tied for second with 64s after completing their first rounds on Friday were Brett Rankin and Garcia’s countryman Rocco Repetto Taylor. Taylor shot 29 on his back nine which included a six-hole stretch where he had two birdies, two eagles and two birdies.
Before the storm hit, and fresh from an eight-week break after a season that included his first two tournament wins on the PGA Tour, Ryan Fox shot 67 and was among those tied for the lead among those who had finished their rounds.
The tournament is co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australia and the European tour, which is starting its 2025-26 season just two weeks after Rory McIlroy won the Race to Dubai title.
Fox won this year’s Myrtle Beach Classic and Canadian Open on the PGA Tour.
Fox was level with Australian Anthony Quayle and 2024 Asia-Pacific amateur champion Ding Wenyi in a group at 4-under. Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, and fellow Australian Min Woo Lee each shot 68.
Quayle had a familiar name as caddie — Steve Williams. On the bag for 13 of Tiger Woods’ major titles, Williams also caddied for Scott when he won the Masters in 2013.
“I met him at the New Zealand Open earlier this year ... got on fairly well and I said, ‘Do you mind if we go grab a coffee afterwards, I’d love to pick your brain?‘” Quayle said after his bogey-free round Thursday. “He said ‘I’ll give you my number, I’ll come caddie for you.’”
Former British Open champion and LIV Tour regular Cameron Smith, winless in more than two years, shot 69, as did the defending champion Elvis Smylie.
Smith, who has won the Australian PGA three times and was runner-up last year, had five top-10 finishes in 13 regular LIV Golf events this season. But he missed his sixth straight cut at last week’s Saudi International in Riyadh.
Marco Penge, who won three times on the European tour this year and is the tournament’s highest-ranked player at No. 30, shot 70.
On Wednesday, the big-hitting Englishman withdrew from the pro-am and said he had been receiving physiotherapy treatment for a neck strain.
“No, it’s not great,” Penge, 27, said Wednesday at Royal Queensland. “The physios here are helping me out. I think I’ve had five physio sessions in the last 24 hours, so we’re doing everything I can to feel OK.”
There were two aces on Thursday — Kazumu Kobori’s wedge into the 17th party hole went for a hole in one before Daniel Gale won a sponsor’s car with his effort on the 11th.
McIlroy will highlight the field in next week’s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne beginning Dec. 4.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland poses Race to Dubai trophy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
The death of a nearly blind refugee from Myanmar who was found on a Buffalo street in February — five days after Border Patrol agents left him at a doughnut shop — has been ruled a homicide, authorities said Wednesday.
The Erie County Medical Examiner's Office didn't reach any conclusions about responsibility for Nurul Amin Shah Alam's death, which the agency said was caused by complications of a perforated duodenal ulcer, precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration. Ruling a death a homicide means it resulted from another person's actions — or inaction — but doesn't necessarily mean that a crime was committed.
“This should not have happened,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, a Democrat, said at a news conference Wednesday. Asked whether the Border Patrol was responsible for his death, he declined to comment and said any such determination would be up to law enforcement agencies.
State Attorney General Letitia James and Erie County District Attorney Mike Keane, both Democrats, noted Wednesday that their offices have been reviewing the case. Keane said in a statement that his office had requested Shah Alam's full autopsy report but “it would be inappropriate” to comment further.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection pointed Wednesday to its previous statement that Shah Alam “showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance” when agents dropped him off Feb. 19 at a Tim Hortons restaurant.
“This death had NOTHING to do” with Border Patrol, its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, said in a Feb. 27 social media post, decrying news coverage of the case as an effort “to demonize our law enforcement.”
Immigrant advocates called Wednesday for justice for Shah Alam, a member of the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority. The group has faced discrimination and oppression in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Shah Alam sought safety in the U.S. and “instead, he was left to die in the street,” New York Immigration Coalition President Murad Awawdeh said, calling for a criminal investigation into the Border Patrol agents’ conduct: “Every single person who was involved must be held responsible.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul similarly called for accountability for everyone involved and said her aides spoke to the district attorney Wednesday afternoon. Hochul, a Democrat and Buffalo native, lambasted “the cruelty and inhumanity” of depositing a man who could barely see, or speak English, outside a then-closed restaurant.
Customs and Border Protection has said the restaurant was chosen as “a warm, safe location” near Shah Alam’s last known address.
Many details about the man's health and final days aren't publicly known, as his autopsy report is confidential under New York law.
But Erie County Health Commissioner Gale Burstein told reporters that Shah Alam developed what is commonly known as a stress ulcer, brought on in his case by dehydration and exposure to the cold. The ulcer breached his intestinal wall, creating what is generally a very painful medical emergency that needs rapid treatment, she said.
Shah Alam, 56, left Myanmar many years ago for Malaysia, where he worked in construction. He came to the U.S. as a refugee with his wife and two of his children in December 2024, according to advocates for the family.
Imran Fazal, who knows the family and founded a group called the Rohingya Empowerment Community, said Shah Alam's death left people grieving and fearful.
“This tragedy was entirely preventable, and it reflects a serious failure in the systems meant to protect vulnerable people," Fazal said Wednesday.
Shah Alam spent about a year in the Erie County jail on felony assault and other charges after a 2025 struggle with police who encountered him carrying what appeared to be curtain rods. Police said he bit two officers; advocates for his family said that he hadn't understood officers’ commands to drop the items.
He eventually pleaded guilty to two lesser, misdemeanor charges and was released from jail Feb. 19. Border Patrol then briefly detained him before determining that he wasn't eligible for deportation. His family, which had been awaiting his release from jail, wasn't informed of it.
Surveillance video, obtained by the Investigative Post, showed Shah Alam treading carefully through the Tim Hortons' empty parking lot in his county-issued jail booties, pulling his hood up against the cold and walking off into the night.
Shah Alam’s lawyer ultimately reported him missing to Buffalo police on Feb. 22.
On Feb. 24, he was found dead near the downtown sports arena where the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres play. It was unclear how he got there from the Tim Hortons, several miles away, and Burstein said Wednesday that it was impossible to determine exactly when he died.
FILE - This image from body camera video provided by the Buffalo Police Department shows Nurul Amin Shah Alam, center, led by Buffalo Police officers, Feb. 15, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (Buffalo Police Department via AP, File)
