Looking for his first win on the PGA Tour, Tommy Fleetwood takes a three-shot lead into the final round of the Travelers Championship.

Fleetwood didn’t miss a single fairway on Saturday on his way to a 7-under 63 that vaulted him to the top of the leaderboard at 16 under. Keegan Bradley and Russell Henley begin the final round tied for second at 13 under.

Second-round co-leaders Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas both had third rounds to forget. Scheffler started with a triple bogey on the opening hole and finished with a 2-over 72. He begins the day nine shots behind Fleetwood. Thomas took a quadruple bogey on the par-5 13th on his way to a 3-over 73. He’s 10 shots back.

LIVE LEADERBOARD: 2025 Travelers Championship

How to watch 2025 Travelers Championship

Final round coverage of the Travelers Championship from TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, will be broadcast live on the Golf Channel and CBS Sports.

TV: Golf Channel (1-3 p.m. ET), CBS (3-6 p.m. ET)

Streaming: ESPN+ (featured groups), NBCSports.com (1-3 p.m. ET) Paramount+ (3-6 p.m. ET), Fubo

Travelers Championship purse, payouts

The total purse for the 2025 Travelers Championship is $20 million, with $3.6 million going to the winner. Here is the complete rundown on how much each position pays:

$3.6 million
$2.16 million
$1.36 million
$960,000
$800,000
$720,000
$670,000
$620,000
$580,000
$540,000
$500,000
$460,000
$420,000
$380,000
$360,000
$340,000
$320,000
$300,000
$280,000
$260,000
$240,000
$223,000
$207,500
$190,000
$175,000
$159,000
$152,500
$146,000
$140,000
$134,000
$128,500
$122,500
$116,500
$111,000
$106,500
$101,500
$96,500
$92,500
$88,500
$84,000
$80,000
$76,000
$72,000
$68,000
$64,000
$60,000
$56,000
$53,000
$50,000
$49,000
$48,000
$47,000
$46,000
$46,000
$45,500
$45,000
$44,500
$43,500
$43,000
$42,500
$41,500
$41,000
$40,500
$40,000
$39,500
$39,000
$38,000
$37,500
$38,000
$37,500
$37,000
$36,000

This is Part 1 of a three-part summer series visiting with three former major league All-Stars turned sports dads. They offer sports and life advice about how we can make our kids better players, but also how get the most out of athletic experiences with them.

This week: Youth baseball with Todd Frazier, the former heart of Toms River (New Jersey) Little League who has returned home.

Do you have youth sports figured out?

‘I think if anybody says they know what they’re doing,’ Todd Frazier says, ‘they’d be lying to themselves.’

These words come from someone who spent 11 seasons as a standout in the major leagues, who was the MVP of the 1998 Little League World Series, who led off its final game with a home run and who recorded its last out as a pitcher.

Today, he coaches his son Blake on the same field of his Jersey Shore township where he played as a kid. He broadcasts the annual championships from the one in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where his team toppled Japan.

He watches fellow dads urging on their players, and he knows exactly how they feel.

‘I’m coaching third base, you’re trying to will ’em to hit the ball,’ Frazier tells USA TODAY Sports. ‘It’s the worst. Now, as a parent understanding it, your son’s 0-2 count, we’re in the last inning … as a parent, it’s very hard to distinguish when they’re struggling and when they’re doing well.

‘But everybody’s been there.’

How we handle that moment – and not so much the result our kids produce in it – can define our athletic experiences with them.

‘There’s no book, so you see these parents, some of them are just out of control,’ says Frazier, 39. ‘I’ve learned a lot over the years. I’ve honed back a little bit, understanding that it’s not the end of the world when your kid does strike out with the bases loaded.’

How do we get to that space with our minds and emotions? Frazier, now a sports dad of three – sons Blake, 11, and Grant, 6, who play baseball; and daughter Kylie, 9, a gymnast – spoke to us about gaining the intrinsic value of youth sports while still staying keyed in and competitive.

We were connected through his ‘Squish the Bug’ campaign with OFF! Mosquito and Tick Repellents. It stresses batting fundamentals and how kids can stay active and intent through organized sports.

‘You’re not getting scouted at 12’: When you’re a kid, it’s the experience of sports that matters

Brent Musburger is on the call. Frazier swings and launches the pitch into a sea of people beyond the left field wall in Williamsport.

When Frazier grew up, there was really nothing around that resembled travel baseball. Little League was everything. Now, in some cases, one entity replaces the other.

‘Little League is the best, and I feel bad because a lot of kids aren’t really experiencing it anymore because they’re hearing it from some upper-tier people that say if you don’t play travel ball, you’ll never go to this college and that,’ he says. ‘And I think that’s ridiculous.

‘You’re not getting scouted at 8-, 9-, 10-, 11-,12-years old, man; (not) until you get to the big field.’

Everything, in a way, happens in miniature in Little League. The 12-year-old Frazier, who would grow up to be 6-3, was about 5-2. His 102-pound frame nearly floated around the bases after his leadoff home run and leaped gleefully into a dog pile after it was over.

The events of our sporting lives when we are kids, though, are outsized. Sometimes, we think back to them in slow motion. When Frazier looks back, the end of his team’s magical run is icing on the cake to the full portrait of moments his Little League career provided.

In Williamsport alone, he became good friends with kids from Saudi Arabia and Japan. He traded team pins to other players for theirs and he rode cardboard down the hill at Howard J. Lamade Stadium.

‘I was telling my wife the other day, my team was the last team to play the last game in Little League Baseball,’ he says. ‘Going to Williamsport’s great, but the memories I’ve had were not only for myself but seeing the kids – so-called not really good baseball players – do well and get like a game-winning hit, and to see the smiles on their faces and the parents how excited they are. Those are memories that are lasting. And my success came from the help of a lot of other people. So did I have the skill? Of course. But you know, you need a lot of help as you move along the way.’

The help starts at the grass roots, back to where Frazier has gone, where our sports journey begins. And it starts with you.

A ‘good’ team begins and end with good parents

When kids set out to play baseball, or any sport, big league dreams bounce around their heads. But as they continue onward, the sensory moments they see, feel and experience in real time move front and center.

They gain confidence in small steps: recording an out by throwing the ball to the correct base; kicking it within the progression of forward motion of the game; moving naturally to the open spot on the court for an open shot. As they get a little older, we are the ones – Frazier even admits to doing it – most likely to overanalyze what’s going on.

‘Sure, you lose the game or you’re eliminated, there’s a lot of raw emotion,’ Patrick Wilson told USA TODAY Sports in March. Wilson is Little League International’s president and chief executive officer and a longtime member of the operations ranks of the organization.

‘But shortly thereafter, they’re being 12-year-olds again. They’re stealing peoples’ hats, trading pins … they move on very quickly. Now the adults, the coaches and their parents, they hold onto it a little longer.’

Frazier and his old Little League teammates had a different vibe around them, even by the time they reached Williamsport. He felt zero pressure.

‘None whatsoever,’ he says. ‘And I give the credit to the coaches and the parents as well. I think that’s another thing in youth sports: If you have really good parents, you’re gonna have a pretty good team, whether you win or lose, because you have no complaints. They’re not worried about where their kid’s hitting. And they’re focused on how the coach is coaching and how the kid is getting better each day. And I think that was the big thing for us.’

Ex-teammate Tom Gannon, who would go on to become a police officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told LittleLeague.org in 2018 that Toms River ‘had no intentions of getting that far. But we had great coaching, we meshed well as a team, and we gained more confidence as each round went on.’

First and foremost, they were allowed to be kids. Think of those first road trips your child takes with a team. There are always a few parents who are sticklers about keeping the players away from pools and amusement parks that might tire them out or otherwise distract them from the ‘reason’ they are on the trip.

‘Of course you want to win,’ Frazier says. ‘That’s just the nature of the beast. But are they getting better? Are they having fun? Are they putting their best foot forward?

‘It comes with time, and I’ve learned a lot over the years.’

‘Sometimes you reach the stars and you hit the moon’: Don’t be afraid to set grand goals

The idea behind Frazier’s new campaign is to make a hitting drill more enjoyable and relatable to kids. As you swing, he teaches, turn your back foot as if you’re ‘squishing a bug,’ which pops your hips through the zone to help with leverage and power.

Frazier shot a commercial with Blake at Toms River’s Little League complex, where his son is playing 11-year-old All-Stars this summer. Next year, Frazier will coach Blake in Little League as his son looks for his own dream shot at Williamsport.

‘It’s a big leap and bound,’ Frazier says. ‘I’m sure he’s going to put his best foot forward. But yes, it’s a goal and I think young kids nowadays need goals, and I think they need to understand: Set your goals high. You want to bat .500 and you bat .400, that’s pretty darn good. So sometimes you reach for the stars and you hit the moon a little bit. That’s still pretty good feat.’

He says, though, he’s never really thought about sports goals he has for his kids. His sons and daughter are the ones developing those.

‘I would love for them all to play professional sports. I think that’s the end goal,’ he says. ‘But knowing how hard it is, I tell my kids all the time: bring energy, emotion, enthusiasm, to anything you do, and you can’t go wrong. Practice the right way. Just be you, but at the same time focus. And I think at this age, if you’re focused and under control and not taking any pitches off, you’re gonna have fun and you’re gonna enjoy the moment.’

Frazier coaches Blake in travel baseball when he’s not playing Little League. I have seen them at tournaments in our region. My son approached Frazier and told me how personable and conversant he was with kids on other teams. It’s a approach Frazier has used to improve his coaching.

‘Expect failure’: It’s an opportunity for your kid to grow

We’re back in that situation many sports parents dread: Our son or daughter is up with the bases loaded. When it happens, Frazier now sits back and observes. Whatever happens, it’s a launching point for teaching.

‘Come here,’ Frazier might say to Blake or one of his other players. ‘I want to know what you learned from this experience and how we could have made it better, or how you could have done better.’

He feels having a pragmatic and good-natured style is more productive than saying, ‘What are you doing? Why didn’t you swing at this pitch?’

We want our children to initiate solutions, but to learn to cope with situations where they don’t succeed. Let them fall and pick themselves up, leaning on you only if they need it.

‘Expect your kid to fail,’ Frazier says. ‘And I think that’s hard for them to understand, because in the world we live in, it’s the now, now, now … why isn’t he doing it now? Why is he doing this? It’s not their swing, it’s not their hands are dropping, it’s not they took their head off the ball. That’s just the nature of baseball, and it’s gonna happen over and over. And you just got to understand, ‘OK, I can live with it, but hopefully he’s getting better next time.”

Next week: Chasing success through a high school and college baseball experience

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.

Summer has just begun and forecasters are already sounding the alarm bells about a deadly round of severe weather working its way across much of the USA.

As a storm system brought high winds and tornados across the Midwest and Northeast on Saturday, exceedingly high temperatures elsewhere took a toll on outdoor activities – including Major League Baseball games.

In St. Louis and Chicago, the mercury topped the 90 degree mark, coupled with high humidity, driving the heat index above 100. Those conditions led to incidents in each game – both of which lasted over three hours – in which players and umpires had to seek treatment.

Reds’ Elly De La Cruz vomits on field

With two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning in St. Louis, Reds star Elly De La Cruz vomited on the infield dirt near his position at shortstop. An athletic trainer came out to check on him as the grounds crew cleaned up the field.

‘I actually watched him,’ Reds manager Terry Francona said. “He drank a bunch of water. I mean, a bunch, and then he went right out and got rid of it.”

De La Cruz stayed in the game.

Just an inning earlier, De La Cruz hit a two-out triple and tried to score as the throw came in from the outfield, but he was thrown out. Then later in the seventh, he was able to stroll all the way around the bases after hitting a 435-foot home run in a game the Reds eventually lost 6-5 in 11 innings..

Umpire, Mariners’ Trent Thornton succumb to heat at Wrigley

Following the fifth inning of the Mariners-Cubs game in Chicago, home plate umpire Chad Whitson left the field and received treatment from athletic trainers in the Seattle dugout. After a 10-minute delay, he was replaced and the game continued with just three umpires.

Later in the game, veteran Mariners pitcher Trent Thornton – after going back out for a third inning of work – had to be helped off the field after nearly collapsing behind the mound.

‘It was a scary moment, for sure,’ Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. ‘He battled hard. But just really glad that he’s feeling a little bit better now and should be OK.’

At the end of the game, a member of the Cubs field staff also collapsed, but the team said he was okay. Likewise for umpire Whitson; an MLB spokesperson said he was feeling better Saturday night and had been cleared to work third base for Sunday’s series finale.

Climate change a real issue for MLB

Those two games weren’t the only ones played in stifling conditions on the first full day of summer.

A high-pressure system over the Southeast that meteorologists sometimes refer to as a ‘ring of fire’ resulted in more than 150 million Americans under some kind of advisory or warning for dangerous heat over the weekend.

The Brewers-Twins game in Minneapolis was played under an excessive heat warning. And in Denver, the first-pitch temperature of 98 degrees for Rockies-Diamondbacks was highest for a major league game this season.

And we’re just getting started.

Writing for North Side Baseball, Matthew Trueblood points out some of the elevated heat-related dangers umpires face when conditions get excessive.

Home plate umps have to wear extra safety equipment for protection from foul balls. They must stay on the field at all times and aren’t able to retreat to the dugout or clubhouse between innings. And they’re considerably older than the players, making them even more susceptible to heat-related issues.

In addition, the problem figures to get worse as the planet continues to warm. Trueblood cites data from the Environmental Protection Agency that shows heat waves (in which temperatures reach dangerous levels for several days) are occurring almost three times as often as they did in the 1960s and roughly twice as often as they did in the 1980s.

‘For the next several years,’ Trueblood writes, ‘baseball will need to be played only when safe, which will mean building in more off days on the long calendar of the season and/or canceling more contests.’

We already have one MLB stadium damaged to the point of unplayability for 2025 due to an extreme weather event. And along with the Rays in Tampa, the Athletics in West Sacramento, California, are now playing their home games in ballparks that will be among MLB’s most extreme for heat and humidity over the summer.

Colorado football coach Deion Sanders has made “progress” as he battles back from an unspecified health issue and is moving around again outdoors, his son Deion Jr. said in a YouTube video posted Saturday.

The video shows Sanders fishing at his estate in Texas with former Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Deion Sanders Jr. says in the video. “Coach Prime back active, moving around. God is great. Not back active moving around, but it’s progress.”

Sanders Sr. has been away from his job in Colorado since April and did not attend Colorado’s annual youth and high school camps in June, even though operating such camps is listed in his employment contract as one of his official duties.

The timing of his return to campus remains unclear. This is usually a dead time of year for head coaches in college football, but he is due to make an appearance at a Big 12 Conference media event in Frisco, Texas, on July 9.

The video showed him on a boat in a lake encouraging Hunter as the Jacksonville Jaguars rookie reels in a fish.

“Bring him out,” Sanders tells Hunter. “C’mon T. Hunter. There you go. T. Hunter!”

Sanders, 57, previously said on social media June 11 that “everything is OKAY” and that he would provide a full update upon his return to Colorado.

‘I’m excited to get back to Colorado to be at home with my staff, team & all associated to our program,” Sanders wrote on social media on June 11.

Sanders also mentioned the issue on a podcast in late May with former NFL cornerback Asante Samuel.

“I hope you’re feeling better,” Samuel said to Sanders. Samuel asked him if he ever tried fasting.

Sanders responded by saying “what I’m dealing with right now is at (a) whole nother level” but said he’s coming back after losing about 14 pounds.

Sanders previously battled issues with blood clots in his legs for years and had to miss a Pac-12 Conference media event in Las Vegas because of it in July 2023. 

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

If Game 1 of the College World Series championship series marked the last time Kade Anderson starts for LSU baseball, the 6-foot-2 left-hander sure put on quite the memorable outing as he went the distance to deliver the Tigers a 1-0 shutout win over Coastal Carolina.

It was also a performance that shored up one thing for his coach, Jay Johnson: Kade Anderson should be the No. 1 overall pick to the Washington Nationals in the 2025 MLB Draft.

‘His next pitch should be somewhere in the Washington Nationals organization. It’s not close,’ Johnson said after LSU’s win over Coastal Carolina. ‘… He’s the best player in the country. There’s nobody closer to the Major Leagues than that right now.’

It was also the second complete game of his career, and the season. His 10 strikeouts increased his nation-leading strikeout number to 180 punchouts in 119 innings of work this year. Of the 130 pitches he threw against Coastal Carolina on the night, 82 of them were for strikes.

Johnson’s pleas for Anderson to be the No. 1 overall pick in next month’s MLB draft weren’t the only flowers that he gave his junior ace. The 48-year-old Johnson put Anderson’s heroic season and skillset up there with former LSU pitcher Paul Skenes, who went No. 1 overall to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2023 and has been a phenom since making his debut in May 2024.

‘He’s the best pitcher in college baseball. We had the best pitcher (Paul Skenes) on the planet two years ago in a similar situation. I feel like Kade has a very similar season to that,’ Johnson said. ‘And that’s how you get here (to CWS). I’m really proud of him.

‘I think the commonality between the two is the person, the character, the toughness and the team-first attitude.’

Anderson is currently projected to go within the top five of the MLB draft by several MLB draft analysts. USA TODAY’s Gabe Lacques has Anderson going No. 5 overall to the St. Louis Cardinals in his June 10 mock draft, while ESPN’s Kiley McDaniels moved Anderson up to his No. 1 overall pick in his mock draft that came out on June 18.

LSU will now look to close the College World Series championship series with a win on June 22 at 2:30 p.m. ET against Coastal Carolina at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska.

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LOS ANGELES — More than 100 protesters gathered two blocks from Dodger Stadium about three hours before Saturday’s scheduled first pitch. They had a clear message.

The Dodgers’ commitment of $1 million in ‘direct financial assistance for families of immigrants impacted by recent events’ has not earned them full-fledged forgiveness.

Though a majority of the protesters’ signs and chants targeted ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), others conveyed their displeasure with the Dodgers.

Two protesters held handmade signs that read, “The Dodgers want you to shut up for $1 million.”

Standing nearby, Alex Gansen of Hollywood told USA TODAY Sports, “I feel like the Dodgers are doing a lot of PR cleanup.”

The Dodgers remained publicly silent for more than two weeks after protests sparked by immigration raids and mass deportation started June 6 in downtown Los Angeles.  

The Dodgers broke their silence on Thursday, when they said they had denied ICE entry and access to the stadium parking lots. The following day, they announced they would commit $1 million for assistance to immigrant families ‘impacted by recent events.”

Protesters gathered outside the main entrance to Dodger Stadium Thursday, and blocked traffic. That resulted in some tense moments with more than two-dozen police officers deployed to the scene.

But the protest Saturday at the intersection of Vin Scully Avenue and Sunset Boulevard was boisterous but peaceful.

Motorists honked, salsa music played and chants competed for attention amid the cacophony. (“ICE out of L.A., do better Dodgers!” was one of the big chants.) And there was no attempt to block traffic and few signs of law enforcement. 

At one point, a female protester was pounding on the hood of a truck and yelling at the driver. From across the street, Raul Claros, a protest organizer, responded through his megaphone, “Stay disciplined. Don’t take the bait. Peaceful protest.”

Feelings inside Dodger Stadium

The sentiment among Dodgers fans inside the stadium was more varied than among the protesters

Margie Lara, 46, said her anger with the Dodgers began in April when the team visited the White House to celebrate their winning the 2024 World Series.

Then came the Dodgers’ silence among the immigration raids and mass deportations.

“It really hurt that it took so long (for the Dodgers) to say anything,’’ Lara said. Of the $1 million commitment, she added, “I feel like it’s a little too late.’’

But her husband, Juan, said of the $1 million pledge, “I think it’s a starting point. You can tell the owners don’t want to get involved. But it’s a starting point.’’

Isabel Fernandez, 57, said, “It feels like the beginning of something great.’’

But her daughter-in-law, Sofi Palacios, 21, said, “It kind of feels like chump change.’’

Juan Corrales, 50, said he’d like to see the team provide more money for assistance.

“There’s a lot of families that are going to get ruined,’’ he said, explaining that families will struggle if relatives who were the breadwinners are deported.

Multiple Dodgers fans declined to comment on the $1 million commitment.

This story has been updated with new information.

UFC President Dana White said Saturday that Jon Jones, the UFC heavyweight champ and former light heavyweight champion, has retired.

What was originally expected to be a confirmation of an expected fight between Jones and Aspinall turned into a highly unexpected affair. ‘Jon Jones called us last night and retired. Jon Jones is officially retired. Tom Aspinall is the heavyweight champion of the UFC,’ White said Saturday in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Jones had won the vacant heavyweight title in March 2023 with a submission win over Ciryl Gane. Jones had been three years removed from the sport at that time. He defended the title in November 2024, when he took down Stipe Miocic with a spinning back kick KO. However, Jones has since been MIA, emboldening a narrative that Jones was ducking the Aspinall fight.

Renewed issues with the law may have also played a role. Late Saturday night, the Albuquerque Journal reported that Jones has been accused of leaving the scene of an accident in February, with a criminal summons filed on Tuesday, June 17. According to the report, Jones has been called to appear for a bond arraignment on Tuesday, July 24.

Tom Aspinall wanted the fight

Aspinall, 32, had wanted to fight Jones, 37, for quite some time. He’d tried provoking Jones earlier this year, declaring himself the ‘rightful’ heavyweight champ after Jones continued to delay a fight between them.

White had previously said that a fight between Aspinall and Jones was set but that the paperwork had not been signed. That statement was also the first time White warned Jones that he might be forced to relinquish his title. With Jones retiring, his title has been given to Aspinall.

Jon Jones’ latest comments on his status with UFC

Jones confirmed his retirement late Saturday with a post on X.

In the post, Jones briefly reminisced about his biggest accomplishments before thanking the UFC and everyone that made his all-time great career possible. He finished his statement with, ‘As I close this chapter of my life, I look forward to new opportunities and challenges ahead. MMA will always be a part of who I am, and I’m excited to see how I can continue to contribute to the sport and inspire others in new ways. Thank you all for being part of this incredible journey with me. The best is yet to come.’

A few days prior, Jones had said on a podcast that he had no current interest in fighting.

‘I don’t want to say I’m retired because fighting is in my blood. Right now, I could really care less about fighting,’ said Jones. ‘I’ve been doing it my entire life at a very high level. When the itch comes back, and if it comes back, then I’ll do it with my whole heart. I’ll do it to the best of my abilities.’

This story has been updated with new information.