Bride convinced new dad Burns to take his shot at British Open beginning today
By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
Golf’s fourth major begins this morning in Southport, England, and it’s the only thing that could carry Sam Burns across the pond and away from his newborn baby daughter Belle.
That, and his wife Caroline’s encouragement.
Belle was born 11 days early, on July 3. With the due date Tuesday, Burns fully expected to be at home in Choudrant with his wife and 2-year-old son Bear, and probably a newborn, this week.
Instead, he arrived Monday and played Royal Birkdale’s back nine to begin preparing for the 154th British Open.
Burns has a mid-afternoon tee time (local time) on the storied links course with Chris Gotterup and Adam Scott as he takes aim at his first major championship after close calls in three of the last five.
He led through much of the 2025 U.S. Open and was first with four holes to go before a dubious ruling forced him to play from a waterlogged lie, leading to a double bogey. He staggered home for a seventh-place tie.
Burns tied for seventh in April at The Masters, then was runner-up last month at the U.S. Open, barely missing a 22-foot birdie putt on the 18th that would have forced a playoff with Wyndham Clark.
In May, in the second major of the season, Burns was 26th at the PGA Championship. Three-quarters (12 of 16) of his most recent rounds have been in the 60s, including all four in his last start, a 12th place finish two weeks ago at The Travelers.
The native Shreveporter, a Calvary Baptist Academy graduate and two-time LSU All-American, has four straight top 20 finishes this summer.
The combination of the allure of what the locals call The Open Championship, and Burns’ extremely sharp level of play beginning with The Masters in mid-April, was a powerful enough tug for Burns to change his plans and cross the pond to play this week.
“We only get four of these (majors) a year,” Burns told PGATour.com reporter Paul Hodowanic after Wednesday’s practice outing. “If it was a different event, I probably wouldn’t be here. I was expecting to be at home.”
Struggling with the idea of leaving Caroline, Belle and Bear, Burns got encouragement and the green light from his wife that convinced him to travel. He had asked his good friend Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 and defending Open champion, since Scheffler also recently became a second-time dad.
Family is surrounding Caroline, and big brother Bear is enthusiastic about his baby sister.
“I still wasn’t sure if I could get there mentally,” Burns said Wednesday. “It’s just a weird dynamic of having a new baby, and you want to be there for them and your family. I think it was ultimately my decision of, could I get there from a mental standpoint of having to leave?”
After Belle was born, Burns did not touch a golf club until the middle of last week, but feels good about the state of his game. He has played nine holes each day at Royal Birkdale, going around the back nine again Wednesday with Scheffler.
His best finish in this event came in 2024, when he tied for 31st, soaring to a final-round 80 after a Saturday 65 that briefly had him within a shot of the lead. He tied for 45th last summer.
Burns, who turns 30 next Thursday, is one of five players CBS Sports analyst Robby Kalland cited as his top “sleeper” picks to win. Burns goes off at 50-1 odds due largely to his uncertain status in the run-up to The Open.
He stands 10th in FedEx Cup PGA Tour standings, seventh in Presidents Cup points to represent America in international play in September, and is 18th in the Official World Golf Rankings. He has four top 10 finishes and nine top 25s in 16 events this season, capturing $6.4 million in official purse money to raise his career winnings to over $41 million.
Peacock and USA Network have TV coverage of the first two rounds, beginning on Peacock at 12:30 a.m. today and Friday and switching to USA Network from 3 a.m.-1:30 p.m. each day. After early USA Network coverage on the weekend, NBC will take over from 6 a.m. until the end of play Saturday and Sunday.