FORT WORTH, Texas — With his longtime coach Randy Smith eyeing each swing, Scottie Scheffler spent a little extra time on the range at Colonial Country Club on Sunday working through low knockdowns, something the world’s top-ranked player hadn’t done particularly well through the tournament’s first three days.
Looking for his fifth win in his last 10 starts — and to become the first player to win five PGA Tour events before June 1 since Tom Watson turned the trick in 1980 — Scheffler knew the final round of the Charles Schwab Challenge would be more about standing strong in the wind than sprinting toward the lead.
With consistent winds in the 30 mph range making the small greens at Colonial even tougher than usual to hit, Scheffler’s strategy was spot on — and nearly worked.
But as he and others fought to keep their heads afloat, Sam Burns found an even better plan of attack — get out early, play well and wait for the pack to come back to him.
Burns earned his third victory of the PGA Tour season by posting an early 65, then waiting as others struggled to deal with the wind.
He then beat Scheffler — his buddy, with whom he shared a house at this year’s Masters — by dropping an incredible, winding 38-foot putt from off the green on the first playoff hole.
Unbelievably clutch.@SamBurns66 drained the 38-footer from off the green to win @CSChallengeFW. pic.twitter.com/DaQmWt5MRe
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 29, 2022
For the few hours before Burns’ heroic putt, however, he wasn’t even in the conversation.
At one point on the back nine, five players all sat at 10 under as Scheffler, Davis Riley, Brendon Todd, Harold Varner III and Scott Stallings found themselves all tied. Meanwhile, Burns sat in the clubhouse at 9 under.
Riley, who briefly held the lead, was the first to fade away, dropping a shot on No. 13 and then knocking a drive on the next hole out of bounds through a chain-link fence.
Todd, who considers Colonial his favorite course on Tour, dropped strokes at Nos. 11 and 12. Varner then had a stretch of triple bogey-double bogey-triple bogey on Nos. 12-14.
And Stallings tried to stay above water but lost single strokes at 12, 14 and 17 to fall off the chase.
Scheffler, who failed to make a birdie through 18 holes, made knee-knocking par putts of nine, six and eight feet in the final four holes to force the playoff. His only previous appearance in a playoff was when he captured his first Tour victory, as he beat Patrick Cantlay on the third hole at the WM Phoenix Open.
But Burns, who already had victories this season at the Sanderson Farms Championship and the Valspar, posted the day’s best round, including a 30 on the front nine. Burns teed off nearly 90 minutes before Scheffler, and the LSU product took advantage of beating the afternoon gusts, although the world’s 10th-ranked player did play the final seven holes at even par.
He admitted that he wasn’t even thinking about the leaders as he made his way through his final round.
“I never really did, to be honest. When you start the day seven back, I knew Scottie was at 11, I mean, the way that guy is playing right now, who would have ever thought that you’d have a chance seven back?” Burns said. “But I mean, with the wind we had today and the way the golf course is set up, to go out and shoot the score that I did today was really good.”
When the playoff started, the nearly two-hour delay didn’t seem to faze Burns, as he piped a drive well past Scheffler on the first playoff hole and then calmly drained the 38-footer for the victory. Scheffler followed by just missing his putt from 37 feet away.
For Burns, this has become a huge season. The 25-year-old from Shreveport, Louisiana, has eight top-10s in 17 starts on the year and now is only behind Scheffler (four) in terms of Tour wins on the season.
And while the two are extremely close, Burns knows his buddy was not taking it easy on him.
“Yeah, we’re probably best friends,” Burns said. “But at the same time I can assure you, he wanted to beat me more than anybody else and I wanted to beat him more than anybody else, and it just happened to be the two of us at the end.
“It’s going to be a fun story that we’ll get to have for the rest of our careers, and fortunately, I got the better end of it this time, but hopefully, we’re at the beginning of these situations in the future.”
