JOURNAL SPORTS
PINEHURST, N.C. – Sam Burns has played quite well lately, just not in major championships.
He’s got another shot at one of golf’s greatest prizes beginning today in the 124th U.S. Open.
The Shreveport native, a Calvary Baptist graduate and former LSU All-American and 2017 collegiate Player of the Year, tees off at 6:18 a.m. CT alongside 2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover and Australian Cameron Smith.
Burns, now a Choudrant resident who plays out of Squire Creek Country Club, and Smith are two of the top putters in golf. That skill should come in handy on the extremely challenging and lightning quick Pinehurst No. 2 greens.
Burns has missed cuts in the first two majors of 2024, at The Masters and last month at the PGA Championship. But otherwise, he has three top 15 finishes in his last four outings, with the PGA the only outlier, and two of those strong performances have come in the tour’s Signature Events that include the best players and biggest purses.
Burns has put together a solid campaign in 2024 with top 10 finishes at the American Express in La Quinta, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Waste Management Phoenix Open, and Genesis Invitational. The five-time tour winner has played 14 events and made 11 cuts in 2024 while racking up $3.1 million in earnings this season.
In Burns’ most recent outing, he finished T15 at the Memorial Tournament last week, where he shot a 7-under 65 in the opening round.
Burns’ last two U.S. Opens have resulted in top 35 finishes, with a T27 finish in 2022 and a T32 finish in 2023.
The 27-year-old is the 27th-ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Rankings and is in 31st place in the FedEx Cup.
Burns is 23rd in total strokes gained on tour with an average of 0.807 and 54th in putting strokes gained with an average of 0.219. Burns is scoring well, 31st on tour in scoring average (69.80). Another notable statistic in his game is his birdie average of 4.29 per round which is 10th on the PGA Tour.Burns’ last time in the winner’s circle was in 2023 at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event where he prevailed over PGA Tour standout Cameron Young in a playoff.
The USA Network will be handling live coverage today with NBC taking over for the final three rounds, with streaming on Peacock.