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Scotland men emulated their female counterparts by opening the European Curling Championships with victory.

Grant Hardie’s rink triumphed 8-4 in Ostrava in the Czech Republic and face Belgium later on Wednesday.

The men picked up two at the opening end and three at the third to lead 5-1. The Dutch were 6-4 down after six ends but Scotland picked up two more at the seventh to see out the win.

Fay Henderson’s Scotland women began their campaign with a comprehensive 12-3 victory over Denmark.

They edged the opening two ends by single points before the Danes halved the deficit.

However, the Scots took control of their opening, surging into a five-point lead by the close of the fourth end.

Although Denmark scored two points in the fifth, Scotland ended the contest emphatically with a six-point haul in the sixth and final end.

Turkey are up next for Henderson’s rink.

Jon Rahm will give up a reported £75m owed to him by LIV Golf after reaching a separation agreement that will secure his exit from the league.

The league filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States in September after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund withdrew its multibillion-dollar backing.

Spaniard Rahm was listed as the organisation’s top unsecured creditor when LIV filed for bankruptcy, with $7.4m (£5.5m) owed to him for the rest of the 2026 season alone.

ESPN reported he is owed about $100m (£75m), external from the remainder of the $300m, (£222m) contract he signed when he left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf in December 2023.

Despite LIV securing a possible $300m in financing from BC Partners Credit to try and move forward with ‘LIV 2.0’, Rahm has deemed the proposed terms are “unacceptable”.

Instead, he has waived his entire claim in order to have a “complete economic walk-away”.

However, he will take the rights to ‘Legion XIII’ – the name of the LIV team Rahm captained – although he will not be allowed to use it to make a team in TGL – the indoor high-tech golf league launched by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

Rahm was the most high-profile name to join LIV when he left the PGA Tour.

Some players, including Brooks Koepka, have since returned to the PGA Tour, which rewrote its rules in December to allow the five-time major winner to come back, subject to certain sanctions.

Rahm did not follow suit and remained under long-term contract with LIV, but in May reached a deal with the DP World Tour – formerly the European Tour – to retain his membership and remain eligible for next year’s Ryder Cup.

LIV golfers are automatically banned for a year by the PGA Tour. The DP World Tour offers a pathway because the leading 10 players on the European circuit currently gain access to PGA Tour membership.

In August, former world number one Rahm won his third straight LIV season title.

He previously said he had no regrets over joining LIV and backed organisers to make it sustainable.

World number two Luke Humphries secured his place in the World Grand Prix final with a 5-3 victory over James Wade.

Humphries averaged 96.92 and threw 10 180s as he reached the final for the fourth successive time.

The 31-year-old Englishman will face Welshman Gerwyn Price on Sunday evening in Leicester after he beat Nathan Aspinall in the other semi-final.

“I’ve got to do it again because there’s so many major finals I’ve let slip. Gezzy [Price] is playing well but if I play like that again, it’s going to be a cracking game and I hope it is,” Humphries told Sky Sports.

“To make four Grand Prix finals on the trot is super special. It’s history for myself and I’m proud of that but unless I pick that trophy up, unfortunately that history doesn’t mean anything.”

Humphries, who won this title in 2023 but has lost in the past two finals, took the opening set of the semi-final but Wade produced a brilliant 141 checkout en route to drawing level.

The pair exchanged the next two sets before Humphries took control of the contest to move 4-2 ahead.

Wade refused to go quietly and pulled one back to keep the match alive but Humphries held his nerve in the eighth set to seal victory on double top.

In the other semi-final, Price beat a spirited Aspinall 5-2.

The Welshman took a three-set lead as Aspinall struggled to reproduce the form that had seen him average 105.15 in his quarter-final win over Ryan Joyce.

Aspinall briefly rallied and produced a superb 132 checkout – the highest of the match – to get a set on the board.

The 35-year-old then threatened to turn the match around when he reduced the deficit to one set at 3-2.

However, Price regained his composure and closed out the next two sets without reply to secure his place in the final.

Price said he was “frustrated” by Aspinall’s antics during the match as he interacted with a partisan crowd at the Mattioli Arena.

“I’m glad to come through the game. Nathan was complaining about the crowd, but they were on his side,” Price said.

“He’s performing a little bit on stage. I’m great friends with Nathan, but take it on the chin sometimes when you’re losing.”

Tom Kim topped the men’s leaderboard after the third round at the Asian Games as he seeks a gold medal that will significantly reduce the time he is required to spend in South Korea’s military.

Having started two shots off the lead, Kim hit a brilliant five-under 65 that included five birdies and an eagle, taking him a stroke clear at 12 under par with one round to play.

Able-bodied South Korean males are usually required to undertake between 18 and 21 months of military service before the age of 28.

However the government rewards Asian Games gold medals and Olympic medals of any colour with a service exemption bar basic training, which lasts less than a month.

Athletes who have previously secured the exemption include former Tottenham footballer Son Heung-min, who served for only three weeks in 2020 having won the Asian Games two years earlier.

Kim hurried from the Presidents Cup in the United States to tee off at the Kasugai Country Club in Japan, having to manage on just six hours of sleep and a 14-hour time difference.

The 24-year-old previously came close to securing an exemption at the Paris Olympics in 2024, finishing day one tied for third before ultimately finishing eighth.

Having looked visibly emotional after that result, Kim is now chasing another chance to stop military service stalling his promising career, which has already featured an Asian Tour order of merit crown and four PGA Tour titles.

The world number 32’s lead would have been larger had he not missed birdie putts on the 14th and 18th holes, but he stands clear of Taiwan’s Wang Wei-hsuan, who had led overnight, and Japan’s Kazuki Higa going into day four.

The men’s team event title offers another route for military exemption, with South Korea also topping the men’s leaderboard by one stroke.

Gold in that event will exempt Tom Kim and SH Kim, 28, regardless of the individual result, but it would come too late for the third team member, Mun Do-yeob, who has already served.

“I think about it. It’s so tough,” SH Kim said of the possibility of military service.

“I am 100% nervous, for sure. It’s a lot of pressure. I could stay on the PGA Tour (with a gold). That’s my goal.”