By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Sam Burns equaled his best major championship finish with a tie for 7th Sunday at the Masters, hanging around the lead all weekend.
That seventh place grants him an automatic invitation to next year’s Masters, given to the top 12 finishers.
He played in the final group Saturday with tournament leader and eventual champion Rory McIlroy, and outplayed him by five shots.
He made perhaps the most spectacular putt of the tournament Sunday, holing an L-shaped 62-footer for birdie on the fabled par-3 16th hole.
While Burns played some of the best golf of his major championship career, the most important news for him came off the course. He and wife Caroline, who live in Choudrant, are going to become parents for the second time in late July. Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis broke the news to the sporting world this weekend, although some in the 318 area code were surely aware.
Burns, 29, collected $725,625 and bumped his career earnings over $36 million, to $36.7. He almost doubled his 2026 prize money to $1.98 million, earned while making the cut in five of eight tournaments, He’s been top 25 in four of those, top 10 in two.
His 9-under par (67-71-68-73) scorecard is his best in a major championship, and his second seventh-place finish in the last three majors, along with last year’s U.S. Open.
Burns, a Shreveport native and former LSU All-American, was in the penultimate pairing Sunday in front of McIlroy and third-round leader Cameron Young. Burns birdied the first hole with a 20-foot make and briefly moved into a tie for the lead.
But the next two holes were too much to overcome. Burns, who eagled the par-5 second hole Thursday, drove into trees and set off a series of shots that wound up with a double-bogey 7. On the short par 4 third hole, he drove into a greenside bunker, but took two shots to escape it and uncharacteristically missed a 5-foot par putt.
He bogeyed the 10th to dip to seven under, then birdied the par-5 13th after driving into more trees, sinking a nine-footer. Burns almost holed out on the 14th, hitting it to a foot for a second straight birdie.
On the par-5 15th, he overcame having his second shot to the angled green roll backwards into the water hazard, and salvaged par. Then came his 62-foot bomb on the 16th green that got him back to 10-under.
But another wayward drive on the 17th forced him to pitch out, and he couldn’t convert a 17-footer for par. He two-putted from 14 feet on the 18th to finish with his best score to par in a major.
His FedEx Cup ranking climbed to 24, and he rose to 33 in the Official World Golf rankings. Burns will play in the RBC Heritage this week in Hilton Head Island, S.C.