As the final group played the 11th hole, five players were tied for the lead at 10-under par. Sam Burns was not one of them, but by day’s end Burns had his third win of the 2021-22 PGA Tour season, taking the Charles Schwab Challenge in a playoff over reigning Masters champion Scottie Scheffler by dropping a 38-foot bomb from the back fringe for a winning birdie.
Burns’ final-round 65 tied for the day’s low round, but it took a number of miscues from the leaders for him to even get into overtime. Sunday at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth boasted a crowded leaderboard as the final nine got underway. That’s when the gusty winds started to take their toll on the field. Davis Riley hit a drive out of bounds on the 14th and made double-bogey, followed by Brendon Todd bogeying the par-5 11th. Scott Stallings was next to falter, making bogey after airmailing the green at 12 closely followed by Harold Varner III coming up short from 124 yards, plugging in the bunker and making a mess with a four-putt for a triple bogey. That put Scheffler in the lead alone before he bogeyed the 11th with a three-jack from the fringe, which suddenly made Burns a very viable contender as he finished his round.
In winning Burns leaned on two normally reliable parts of his game: strong play off the tee and a deft touch on the greens. Burns was sixth in the field in strokes gained/off-the-tee as well as in driving distance at 321.3 yards.
Burns’ driver is a 10-5 degree Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond with a Fujikura Ventus Blue 7x shaft. The driver fits Burns’ desire to work the ball and shape shots off the tee while dropping the spin rate to a more optimal level.
On the greens, Burns ranked sixth in strokes gained/putting, more than five strokes better than the field average with his Odyssey O-Works Black #7S mallet putter. On Sunday Burns holed birdie putts of seven, 10, nine, nine 15, 10 and eight feet allowing him to pick up 4.116 shots on the field in the final round alone.
Burns’ putter is a club he has primarily had in the bag since turning pro in 2017. “I’ve changed a few times, but not for long,” Burns told Golf Digest earlier this year. “It’s a club I’m really comfortable with and it sets up well for me. I’m not one to change much. Having the comfort level and seeing good results with it would make it hard to switch.”
If he keeps making putts like he did at Colonial in the final round, expect that putter to stay in the bag a little bit longer.
What Sam Burns had in the bag at the 2022 Charles Schwab Challenge:
Ball: Callaway Chrome Soft X
Driver: Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond (Fujikura Ventus Blue 7x), 10.5 degrees
5-wood: Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero, 17 degrees
Hybrid: Callaway Apex UW, 21 degrees
Irons (4-AW): Callaway Apex TCB
Wedges: Callaway Jaws MD5 Raw (56, 60 degrees)
Putter: Odyssey O-Works Black #7S
