Putt free and try hard: Why Sam Burns, the world's best on the greens, is rolling at Oakmont
OAKMONT, Pa. – Sam Burns has a simple answer to why he's, statistically, the world's best putter.
'I practice it a lot,' he says.
Louisiana Tech head coach Matt Terry can confirm. The Bulldogs share a home club with Burns, Squire Creek Country Club in Choudrant, Louisiana, and when Burns isn't on the road, he can often be found on Squire's practice green perfecting his stroke – template work, chalk lines, speed drills, you name it. These days, Burns will sometimes plop his 1-year-old son, Bear, down on the grass, hand him a wedge and get in a few extra putts while the toddler sits there, gnawing on the grip.
'That stuff is why he's so good; it's just constant,' Terry said. 'I tell my guys all the time to just go watch him putt and mirror what he does.
'The dude's the best I've ever seen on the greens.'
The USGA usually gets creative with a handful of its U.S. Open groupings. For example, this week's trio of Burns, Denny McCarthy and Nico Echavarria combined the best three putters in the field, according to the PGA Tour's strokes-gained metric. Burns is unequivocally the best of the bunch. He's the only U.S. Open competitor, per Data Golf, who is gaining more than a shot per round on the greens in the past six months – and he's 0.2 strokes per round better than the next best player, Cameron Smith.
'If you look at putting,' Burns explains, 'the ball is rolling on the ground. There's a lot of imperfections on grass. There's a lot of different lines the ball can go in, depending on the speed, so if you try to be too perfect with putting, it can drive you crazy, so I just try to really read it, put a good roll on it, focus on the speed and hope for the best.'
Added Burns' close friend, Scottie Scheffler: 'He's got good fundamentals, good instinct, and he putts very reactionary. That's really all there is to it.'
The ninth green at Oakmont Country Club is a long way from Squire Creek, both literally and figuratively. Measuring at over 22,000 square feet, the putting surface, which sits in the shadows of Oakmont's farmhouse-style clubhouse, is the largest on property and doubles as the club's practice green. It features a wide variety of challenges, sloping back to front with a large swale through the middle and a mound on the right portion. Friday's hole location was tucked front right, just right of the swale and behind a deep bunker.
At 5 under through 17 holes and on his way to easily the best round so far this week, Burns had no business saving par after tugging his drive into the left penalty area. But he took his medicine, dropped and hit his third shot pin high, 23 feet left of the flag to avoid any chance of dumping one in the sand.
You see, the thing about putting is no one makes everything. Even Burns whiffed on a 5-footer last Sunday in Canada that would've won him his sixth PGA Tour title. He three-putted to lose, too. And on Thursday at Oakmont, he unusually finished in the negative in strokes gained putting, ranking just outside the top 100 of 156 players.
But Burns bounced back with a vengeance on Friday, pouring in over 102 feet of putts, including that clutch par save on the par-4 ninth to solidify a second-round 65 and two-day total of 3-under 137, which left he and Viktor Hovland (1 under) as the only two players in their wave at even par or better.
'That putt was, I don't know, 6 feet of break,' Burns guessed of the putt, which gained him about a stroke on the field alone. 'Yeah, it was a nice one to make for sure.'
Despite his elite skill with the flatstick – his trusty Odyssey Ai-One 7S – Burns finds himself in unfamiliar territory. This is his 21st career major start. Until his T-9 at last year's U.S. Open at Pinehurst, he'd never cracked the top 10 in a major. The physical explanation, at least in recent years, is Burns' iron play hasn't been good enough. He entered this week ranked No. 149 in strokes gained approach, so the fact that he missed just four greens Friday and ranks inside the top 10 in that category through two days probably explains his breakout performance.
But Burns added that he learned something 12 months ago at Pinehurst.
'I just feel like I've tried to play too perfect and tried to force it a little bit at times … around major championship golf courses,' Burns explained, 'and I think especially around here, honestly it kind of forces you to take your medicine because a lot of times that's the only option you have. … You really just have to free it up. It's too hard to try to guide it around here. You're going to hit some in the rough, you're going to hit some in some bad spots, you might as well do it with authority.'
Burns' patience was tested late Thursday afternoon when he quickly went from 3 under to 2 over with a bogey-double-bogey-bogey finish over his last four holes, Nos 15-18.
'It was unfortunate,' Burns said, 'but there was too much good to focus on the little bit of bad.'
A day later, Burns was heading toward his television interview when he walked past Jon Rahm, who was speaking to reporters following a disappointing 75 that dropped him to 4 over.
'I'm too annoyed and too mad right now to think about any perspective,' Rahm said. 'Very frustrated. Very few rounds of golf I played in my life where I think I hit good putts and they didn't sniff the hole.'
Rahm lost about three strokes with the putter on Friday, a performance that ranked him ahead of fewer than 10 players in this second round. Shortly after wrapping his thoughts, Rahm was off to the practice area to figure something out.
As Burns knows, that's the simplest way to holing more putts.
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