Sam Burns has been in this spot before, twice this season alone. Maybe it will help this weekend.
The 24-year-old who starred at LSU had the 36-hole lead in the season-opening Safeway Open in Napa last September, two shots ahead at 15-under-par. He finished tied for seventh.
He had the 54-hole lead eight weeks later in Houston, leading by a shot at 9-under at a venue a little less than four hours driving time from his hometown of Shreveport, La. He started the final round with a bogey and double bogey within the first four holes and finished, again, tied for seventh.
This weekend, on a Riviera Country Club layout teeming with history, Burns has already made some of his own. He followed a first-round 64 with a bogey-free 66 on Friday, and his 12-under total put him five shots ahead going into Saturday’s third round of the Genesis Invitational.
Burns’ 130 tied the best 36-hole score in the history of this tournament, which has been held every year but one since 1926 and has a list of entrants and winners that would constitute a Hall of Fame wing, at the very least. Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer each won the L.A. Open three times and they never got to 12-under after 36.
Those who did: Davis Love III in 1992, and Mike Weir and Shigeki Maruyama in 2004. Love lost a playoff to Fred Couples in ’92, while Weir beat Maruyama by a shot in ’04.
This time, Burns has a nice cushion. Tyler McCumber, Jason Kokrak, Dustin Johnson and Joaquin Niemann are all at 7-under, and Niemann had a birdie putt slide right on 18 on Friday that would have given him sole possession of second place. Valencia’s own Max Homa is at 6-under with Jordan Spieth and Wyndham Clark.
Burns has one true believer in his corner. Before this tournament began, TV commentator (and, might we add, World Golf Hall of Famer) Sir Nick Faldo picked Burns to win this event, stacked as it is with most of the tour’s stars in what is probably the strongest tournament field yet this season.
“He’s a ball-striker and this is a ball-striker’s course,” Faldo said during the Golf Channel’s first-round coverage Thursday. “He’s played well lately and yes, I picked him before the tournament started.”
Responded Burns: “Any time a guy like that says you’re going to play well, it’s always a good sign, I guess.”
Burns had a heralded amateur career. He won the American Junior Golf Association Player of the Year award in 2014 and the Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year Award as the best NCAA Division I golfer in the land, after his sophomore year at LSU in 2017 and just before he turned pro. In 69 PGA Tour events, he has eight top-10 finishes and 19 top-25s, and this season alone he has four top-25 finishes: Napa, Houston, Torrey Pines and Phoenix. His best finish so far was a tie for third in October, 2018, in Jackson, Miss.
Topping that at Riviera would be quite the talking point.
And maybe it’s part of the growth process. You get close, you fall short, you learn. You falter on the final day or the final two days, and you apply those lessons to the next opportunity.
But someone asked Burns what the difference was in those earlier weekends, like Napa (when he was two shots up on Friday and shot a 72 and was overtaken Saturday), or Torrey Pines (when he was two shots off the lead Saturday and shot 75 on Sunday). Or Houston, where he shot 2-over on Sunday. His answer was simple.
“Hadn’t played as good,” he said.
What pleased him most Friday?
“I think just having patience out there,” he said. “I didn’t try to force anything. Whenever we were in a tricky spot, I just took what the golf course gave us. … There’s definitely times when I’ve tried to force it a little bit, but this just is not a golf course where you want to do that.
“I think we just tried to have a good game plan and just kind of stick with it out there all day. This golf course doesn’t necessarily give you a lot of opportunities at times, so (you have to) just put it in the right spots. When you get in a tricky spot, just try to get it back in position.”
An example?
“Well, the thing about this place is if the ball lands in the rough it stops, but if it lands in the fairway it goes another 50 (yards),” he said.
It figures to be trickier Saturday because it is expected to be gustier. The forecast is for winds out of the north and northwest, 16 to 18 mph.
“I mean, I hit sand wedge into 9 (Thursday), which may be a long iron (Saturday),” said Spieth, who had matching 68s the first two days. “It’s going to be the opposite of what you see in the afternoon (the first two rounds), which makes the par-5s and No. 10 probably harder. (And) some of those harder holes that you’re going out, you can drive it further but that doesn’t help the ball stop on the greens on those approach shots.
“If that’s the case, if it’s going to blow, then anything under par’s going to be a great score.”
That would seem to make the patient game also the prudent one, especially for the leader.
“I’d like to think I have all the tools to win out here,” Burns said. “Obviously there’s a lot of good players, really, really good players. I try not to get caught up in that. Just trying to get better each week and just trying to build as the season goes on.”
When you’ve led after 36 holes, and then you’ve led after 54, that would seem to leave one hill to climb.
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