Sam Burns shot a final-round five-under 67 on Sunday to emerge from the pack and win the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi.
Burns’ 22-under 266 was enough for his second title this calendar year, after winning last season’s Valspar Championship in May. Nick Watney (65) and Cameron Young (68) tied for second at 21 under.
“It hasn’t really set in yet. Still looking out there at the golf course like kind of trying to figure out what happened,” said Burns, 25.
What happened was a stretch of four birdies over five holes on the back nine to bring Burns as low as 23 under for the tournament. He got to within eight feet for birdie at the 11th, drained a 13-footer at the Par 3 13th, left an eagle putt inches to the right at the Par 5 14th and had a tap-in birdie at 15. A bogey on Burns’ last hole didn’t do enough damage to his advantage over the field.
Burns did his best not to worry about how the rest of the field was scoring.
“I didn’t really look. I made a comment to Travis (Perkins, his caddie) on the Par 3, 13, can’t remember what I said, but he kind of snapped me back into it, back into what we were trying to do,” Burns said.
“And so he was great all week and just keeping us in the moment and keeping us focused on our process.”
Burns also birdied three holes on the front nine. None of those putts was longer than six feet, four inches, thanks to stellar iron play.
He dedicated the win to his infant nephew, Burns Walker, who is in the hospital with spinal meningitis.
“He won’t remember (the victory) because he’s only five or six weeks old, but I’ll definitely remember it and our family will remember it and (I’m) just really thinking about my sister and her husband and their family and what they have experienced,” Burns said.
Watney had a bogey-free card with seven birdies, including a 25-foot birdie putt at the 14th and a five-footer at the 15th to make a brief run at Burns.
Sweden’s Henrik Norlander fired the round of the day, an eight-under 64 featuring an eagle and three birdies on his back nine. He drove the 14th green in two and drained a 40-foot putt for eagle.
His round lifted him into a tie for fourth at 20 under with Hayden Buckley (66), Andrew Landry (66) and Trey Mullinax (68).
PGA Tour rookie Sahith Theegala held at least a share of the lead after each of the first three rounds. But his final-round 71 led him to a tie for eighth at 19 under with Seth Reeves (69) and South Korea’s Si Woo Kim (66).
After playing the front nine three under par, Theegala bogeyed holes 10, 11 and 13. “It was a fantastic week,” Theegala said. “I played some really good golf and just a little unfortunate how that sort of how that back nine is. But it’s my first one and first time really being in that position, so I’m obviously going to learn a lot and just take so many positives away.”
Séamus Power was the only Irish involved in the tournament but didn’t feature over the weekend after failing to make the cut. A second round 70 on Friday had the Waterford man on two under, three shots off the mark. It ends a run of 11 made cuts in a row for Power, a record that stretched back to last February,
Collated final round scores and totals for Sanderson Farms Championship (USA unless stated, Par 72)
266 Sam Burns 68 66 65 67
267 Nick Watney 65 66 71 65, Cameron Young 67 65 67 68
268 Hayden Buckley 67 65 70 66, Andrew Landry 68 68 66 66, Trey Mullinax 70 66 64 68, Henrik Norlander (Swe) 68 66 70 64
269 Si Woo Kim (Kor) 66 71 66 66, Seth Reeves 71 66 63 69, Sahith Theegala 64 67 67 71
270 Chengtsung Pan (Tai) 68 67 67 68, Cameron Tringale 71 66 62 71, Harold Varner III 65 71 67 67
271 Tyler Duncan 68 68 69 66, Roger Sloan (Can) 66 67 68 70, Will Zalatoris 70 61 72 68
272 Corey Conners (Can) 67 69 66 70, Nate Lashley 70 66 68 68, Luke List 69 70 68 65, Denny McCarthy 69 65 65 73, William McGirt 69 68 68 67, Taylor Moore 67 71 66 68, Brendan Steele 69 70 66 67, Matthew Wolff 68 71 65 68, Grant Hirschman 70 67 66 69
273 Nick Hardy70 66 66 71, Stephan Jaeger (Ger) 68 66 69 70, Aaron Wise 68 66 67 72
274 Russell Knox (Sco) 71 66 66 71, Adam Long 70 69 68 67
275 Sung Jae Im (Kor) 67 69 70 69, Guillermo Mito Pereira (Chi) 71 67 70 67, Alex Smalley 76 63 67 69, Kevin Streelman 68 68 68 71
276 Mackenzie Hughes (Can) 72 66 68 70, Chris Kirk 70 68 69 69, Davis Thompson 70 69 70 67, Kyle Reifers 69 68 71 68
277 Paul Barjon (Fra) 70 66 69 72, Dylan Frittelli (Rsa) 69 67 69 72, Emiliano Grillo (Arg) 70 69 66 72, Charley Hoffman 69 68 69 71, Ryan Moore 71 67 69 70, Taylor Pendrith (Can) 71 66 71 69
278 Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra (Spa) 69 68 74 67, Chesson Hadley 69 69 67 73, Adam Hadwin (Can) 67 71 70 70, Lee Hodges 72 67 68 71, Kurt Kitayama 66 68 74 70, Jimmy Walker 70 66 70 72
279 Joel Dahmen 68 70 68 73, Peter Malnati 70 67 72 70, Andy Ogletree 67 68 77 67, Sam Ryder 70 67 74 68, Michael Thompson 70 68 71 70
280 Brice Garnett 72 67 71 70, Doc Redman 69 70 70 71
281 Joseph Bramlett 70 67 74 70, Doug Ghim 68 70 71 72, Lucas Glover 67 71 71 72, Brandon Hagy 71 66 71 73, Andrew Novak 72 67 71 71
282 John Huh 71 67 73 71, (Cha) Ramey 70 69 72 71
283 Sung-Hoon Kang (Kor) 68 71 72 72, Vincent Whaley 68 71 73 71
284 Austin Cook 68 70 73 73 287 J. J. Spaun 69 69 78 71
