Sportlight-Week Ahead, Aug. 12-18

Aug. 12

1876 — Madeleine wins two straight heats over Canada’s Countess of Dufferin to defend the America’s Cup.

1936 — Rosalind, driven by Ben White, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats.

1937 — Shirley Hanover, driven by Henry Thomas, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats.

1942 — The Ambassador, driven by Ben White, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in the third heat.

1953 — Helicopter, driven by Harry Harvey, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in the third heat.

1978 — Cold Comfort, driven by 23-year-old Peter Haughton, ties the International Trot mark of 2:31 3-5 at Roosevelt Raceway which makes Haughton the youngest driver to win the International.

1990 — Wayne Grady of Australia sheds his runner-up image with a 3-stroke victory over Fred Couples in the PGA Championship.

1994 — Major league baseball players strike in the sport’s eighth work stoppage since 1972.

1995 — Ernie Els sets a PGA record with the lowest three-day score in a major. Els, with a 197, holds a three-stroke lead in the PGA Championship.

2000 — Evander Holyfield scores a 12-round unanimous decision over John Ruiz in Las Vegas to win the vacant WBA heavyweight title.

2007 — Tiger Woods captures the PGA Championship to win at least one major for the third straight season and run his career total to 13. Woods closes with a 1-under 69 for a two-shot victory over Woody Austin.

2011 — Tiger Woods misses the cut at the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club. With one final bogey for a 3-over 73, Woods finishes out of the top 100 for the first time ever in a major. He is 15 shots behind Jason Dufner and Keegan Bradley.

2012 — The U.S. men’s basketball team defend its title by fighting off another huge challenge from Spain, pulling away in the final minutes for a 107-100 victory and its second straight Olympic championship. The victory by the men’s basketball team gives the United States its 46th gold medal in London, the most ever by Americans in a “road” Olympics.

2012 — Rory McIlroy breaks the PGA Championship record for margin of victory that Jack Nicklaus set in 1980. McIlroy sinks one last birdie from 25 feet on the 18th hole to give him a 6-under 66 for an eight-shot victory. McIlroy closes out a remarkable week by playing bogey-free over the final 23 holes of a demanding Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C.

2016 — Katie Ledecky caps off one of the greatest performances in Olympic history with her fourth gold medal and second world record, shattering her own mark in the 800-meter freestyle. Ledecky is the first woman since Debbie Meyer swept the three longer freestyle events at the same Olympics. Meyer took the 200, 400 and 800 at the 1968 Mexico Games.

2017 — Usain Bolt ends his stellar career in excruciating pain. The Jamaican great crumples to the track with a left-leg injury while chasing a final gold medal for the Jamaican 4x100-meter relay team at the world championships in London. Having to make up lots of ground on the anchor leg, Bolt suddenly screams and stumbles as he comes down with the first injury he has experienced at a major competition.

2018 — Brooks Koepka wins his first PGA Championship, playing poised and mistake-free golf down the stretch amid ear-splitting roars for Tiger Woods and a late charge from revitalized Adam Scott. Koepka becomes the fifth player to win the U.S. Open and the PGA in the same year.

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Aug. 13

1919 — Upset scores a win against Man o’ War in the Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga. The defeat is Big Red’s only loss in 21 starts.

1933 — Gene Sarazen wins the PGA Championship by defeating Willie Goggin 5 and 4 in the final round.

1935 — The first roller derby begins in Chicago by promoter Leo Seltzer.

1979 — Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals reaches 3,000 career hits with an infield hit off Chicago Cubs pitcher Dennis Lamp.

1987 — Jackie Joyner-Kersee equals the world record in the women’s long jump — 24 feet, 5½ inches — in the Pan American Games at Indianapolis. She matches the mark set in 1986 by Heike Dreschler of East Germany.

1995 — Cuba’s Ana Quirot, severely burned in a 1993 kitchen accident, wins the 800 meters at the world championships at Gothenburg, Sweden.

1995 — Steve Elkington shoots a final-round 64 and birdies the first playoff hole to beat Colin Montgomerie and win the PGA Championship. The 64 is the lowest final round by a PGA Championship winner.

1997 — Wilson Kipketer topples Sebastian Coe’s 16-year-old record in the 800 meters, finishing in 1 minute, 41.24 seconds in Zurich, Switzerland. Haile Gebrselassie also shatters his own 5,000 record with a time of 12 minutes, 41.86 seconds.

2002 — Natalie Coughlin breaks the 100-meter backstroke world record, timed in 59.58 seconds at the U.S. national championships. She is the first American to hold the world record since Catherine Ferguson in 1966.

2008 — Michael Phelps swims into history as the winningest Olympic athlete with his 10th and 11th career gold medals and five world records in five events at the Beijing Games. He wins the 200-meter butterfly and swims leadoff for the U.S. 800 freestyle relay team.

2016 — The U.S. women’s 4x100-meter medley relay team of Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Simone Manuel — winners at the Rio Games — delivers the nation’s 1,000th gold medal in Summer Olympics history. Michael Phelps closes the Rio Olympics with a gold medal in the butterfly leg of the 4x100 medley relay. Phelps finishes his career with 28 medals, having won five golds and a silver at these games.

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Aug. 14

1903 — Jim Jeffries knocks out Jim Corbett in the 10th round to retain his world heavyweight title in San Francisco.

1936 — In Berlin, the U.S. wins the first Olympic basketball gold medal with a 19-8 win over Canada. The game is played outdoors on a dirt court in a driving rain. Joe Fortenberry leads the U.S. with seven points. James Naismith, the inventor of the game, presents the medals.

1959 — The formation of the American Football League is announced in Chicago. Play will begin in 1960 with franchises in six cities with the probability of adding two more teams.

1977 — Lanny Wadkins beats Gene Littler on the third hole of sudden death to take the PGA Championship.

1977 — The Cosmos, led by Pele, play before a Meadowlands crowd of 77,961 in East Rutherford, N.J., the most to see a soccer game in the U.S. The Cosmos beat the Fort Lauderdale Strikers 8-3 in an NASL quarterfinal playoff game.

1994 — Nick Price wins the PGA Championship, finishing at 11-under 269 for 72 holes, six strokes ahead of Corey Pavin. It is the lowest stroke total in an American major championship.

2003 — The New York blackout forces the evacuation of workers and players from Shea Stadium hours before the Mets-Giants game. It’s the only major league baseball game affected by the blackout that stretches from the Northeast to Ohio and Michigan. Elsewhere, two WNBA games are postponed, and Yonkers (N.Y.) Raceway cancels its card.

2005 — The U.S. 4x400 relay team, anchored by Jeremy Wariner, races to a record 14th gold medal for the United States at the field world championships.

2011 — Keegan Bradley wins the PGA Championship after trailing by five shots with three holes and then defeating Jason Dufner in a three-hole playoff. Bradley becomes the third player in at least 100 years to win a major championship in his first try.

2014 — Rob Manfred is elected baseball’s 10th commissioner, winning a three-man race to succeed Bud Selig.

2016 — South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk breaks Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old world record in the 400-meter final in Rio de Janeiro. Usain Bolt becomes the first to capture three straight 100-meter titles at the Olympics. He finishes in 9.81 — 0.08 seconds ahead of Justin Gatlin.

2019 — French woman Stephanie Frappart is the first woman to referee a major match in a European men’s tournament. UEFA Super Cup, Chelsea vs. Liverpool in Istanbul.

2021 — Arizona Diamondbacks Tyler Gilbert became the fourth pitcher and first in 68 years to throw a no-hitter in his initial big league start, leading Arizona over the San Diego Padres 7-0 with the record-tying eighth no-hitter of the season.

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Aug. 15

1948 — Babe Didrikson Zaharias wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf title over Betty Hicks.

1950 — Ezzard Charles knocks out Freddie Beshore in the 14th round to retain his world heavyweight title.

1965 — Dave Marr edges Jack Nicklaus and Billy Casper to take the PGA Championship.

1966 — Jose Torres retains his world light-heavyweight title with a unanimous decision over Eddie Cotton in Las Vegas.

1993 — Greg Norman lips his putt on the PGA Championship’s second playoff hole, giving Paul Azinger the title and leaving Norman with an unprecedented career of Grand Slam playoff losses. Norman, despite winning his second British Open title a month earlier, has lost playoffs in three other majors — 1984 U.S. Open, 1987 Masters, 1989 British Open.

1993 — Damon Hill, son of the late Graham Hill, becomes the first father-son Formula One winners when he takes the Hungarian Grand Prix.

1995 — Monica Seles returns to the WTA Tour after a 28-month absence following her 1993 stabbing with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Kimberly Po at the Canadian Open.

1999 — Tiger Woods makes a par save on the 17th hole and holds on to win the PGA Championship by one stroke over 19-year-old Sergio Garcia. Woods, 23, becomes the youngest player to win two majors since Seve Ballesteros in 1980.

2004 — In Athens, Greece, the U.S. men’s basketball team loses 92-73 to Puerto Rico, the third Olympic defeat for the Americans and first since adding pros. American teams had been 24-0 since the professional Olympic era began with the 1992 Dream Team. The U.S Olympic team’s record was 109-2, entering the game.

2005 — Phil Mickelson delivers another dramatic finish in a major, flopping a chip out of deep rough to 2 feet for a birdie on the final hole and a one-shot victory in the PGA Championship.

2007 — Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleads guilty to felony charges for taking cash payoffs from gamblers and betting on games he officiated in a scandal that rocked the league and raised questions about the integrity of the sport.

2010 — Martin Kaymer wins the PGA Championship in a three-hole playoff against Bubba Watson. Dustin Johnson, with a one-shot lead playing the final hole at Whistling Straits, is penalized two strokes for grounding his club in a bunker on the last hole. The two-shot penalty sends him into a tie for fifth.

2012 — Felix Hernandez pitches the Seattle Mariners’ first perfect game and the 23rd in baseball history, overpowering the Tampa Bay Rays in a brilliant 1-0 victory. It’s the third perfect game in baseball this season.

2012 — The U.S. breaks a 75-year winless streak at Azteca Stadium with an 80th-minute goal by Michael Orozco Fiscal and Tim Howard’s late sprawling saves in a 1-0 victory over Mexico.

2014 — Mo’Ne Davis, one of two girls at the Little League World Series, throws a two-hitter to help Philadelphia beat Nashville 4-0 in the opener for both teams. Davis, the first girl to appear for a U.S. team in South Williamsport since 2004, has eight strikeouts and no walks.