Weekly Recap: Burns Breaks Through

Over the past few months, Sam Burns provided the blueprint for young golfers trying to make their mark on the PGA Tour: improve, contend, experience heartbreak, slump, win.

You could see the progression begin to play out for the 24-year-old Louisianan throughout the early stages of 2021, and it culminated Sunday with his first PGA Tour win at the Valspar Championship.

Let's go back a few months. Heading to Riviera in February, Burns had the stats to support great results, only they weren't happening, as noted in the DraftKings preview for the Genesis Invitational. 

Burns proceeded to dominate the elite field -- for three and a half rounds. He collapsed with three bogeys on the back nine and missed the playoff by a stroke in Max Homa's win. It was a crushing result and, while it moved Burns into the top 100 of the OWGR for the first time, he missed a spot in the Masters.

He proceeded to miss his next three cuts without breaking par even once at Bay Hill, THE PLAYERS and the Valero Texas Open with rounds of 77-72, 81-76, 75-74. Two weeks later, he made it to the weekend at Harbour Town (T39). The next week was the Zurich Classic, which was critical for Burns and came at a very fortunate time.

Burns got to spend the week with a great veteran partner in Billy Horschel, talking, learning, and winding up tied for fourth. He came out of that week a rejuvenated player, and he was one of our DraftKings picks for this past week's event.

This takes us to Sunday at Copperhead, where there was no repeat collapse for Burns. There were a couple hiccups in the final round, but he played the back nine 2-under-par while veteran Keegan Bradley cracked with a double bogey on No. 13.

Burns ranked fifth in the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and third in SG: Putting. That combination will win a lot of golf tournaments.

As Burns told Amanda Balionis in the joyous aftermath of his breakthrough win, "Moments in the past, they test you and you really learn a lot from them."

The path for every young, expected-to-be-a-star golfer is not exactly the same, but there are similarities, and Burns is following his own. He's now inside the top 50 in the world rankings for the first time, at 44th.

But what often follows that first big, life-altering win? Unfortunately, regression.

Burns' phone surely blew up five minutes after he closed out the win. He is surely hearing from people he hasn't heard from in years. He is the new Big Man on Campus. It's surely not impossible that he keeps the momentum going, but it could be a stretch to expect much from Burns over the next little while. Because what is almost as hard as getting that first win is staying levelheaded and developing consistency after you've just reached the highest high of your professional life.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Keegan Bradley
Every part of Bradley's game was clicking at the Valspar Championship -- he ranked top-11 in the field in five of the six main strokes gained categories. The one outlier was, of course, putting. But he ranked 38th, which is a very good week for him on the greens. It did bite him at the worst possible times, including a four-foot miss on 15. But what really foiled his first win since the 2018 BMW was a water ball on the par-3 13th, which led to the aforementioned double bogey. Bradley was the more experienced player in his Sunday duel with Burns, but he wasn't the best player. Still, he soared from 135th in the OWGR to 74th.

Viktor Hovland
A few months ago, Hovland had a stretch of finishing top-6 six times in seven events. After a few hiccups, he was back at it with a tie for third at Copperhead. He's not quite in the top 10 just yet, but he's on the brink at No. 11, having passed Rory McIlroy in the latest rankings. Hovland's short game is vastly improved. At the Valspar, he ranked 31st in SG: Around-the-Green and 21st in SG: Putting, which is certainly good enough when you consider the rest of his game.

Cameron Tringale
This has quietly been a great year for the 33-year-old. Maybe not so quiet. Tringale tied for third, giving him a fourth top-10 and an eighth top-25 this season, carrying him to 65th in the world rankings. That's not far off his personal best of 55th. There is no one part of Tringale's game that's elite, but there's also no one part that is below average. He is ranked 30th in the all-important SG: Tee-to-Green category.

Max Homa
Almost every week now, Homa is in the mix or close by. He tied for sixth at the Valspar, adding to a season that includes a win at Riviera and top-10s at Pebble Beach and Bay Hill. This was his 10th top-25 of the season. After Homa won the 2019 Wells Fargo Championship, he didn't have so much as another top-25 for more than six months. We are now witnessing a player finding his place on the PGA Tour -- not just winning and then disappearing, but someone who is becoming consistent. It sounds boring, but it might be the most underrated feature of a star athlete.

Brandt Snedeker
Having tumbled out of the top 100 in the world rankings almost all the way to 150th, then not qualifying for the Masters, turning 40 had not been kind to Snedeker. He appears to have stopped the bleeding, and maybe more. He tied for 11th at the Valspar, and that was with bogeys on two of the final three holes. Last month, he tied for sixth at the Valero event. So much about Snedeker is putting, and he was eighth in the Valspar field in SG: Putting.
 
Dustin Johnson
Johnson is still No. 1 in the world, but he has now gone almost six months without doing much of anything on the PGA Tour. He won the Masters in November and in Saudi Arabia in January, yet in the eight Tour events since, he has just one top-10, which was a T8 at The Genesis Invitational. The latest subpar result was a tie for 48th at the Valspar, which matched his result at THE PLAYERS in March. In between, he missed the Masters cut in April. While it's not a huge sample size, it is half a year. Johnson rarely goes six months without a win. With the PGA Championship upcoming and strongly favoring the longest of the long hitters, you'd think DJ would be in prime position to contend for yet another major. We shall see.

Luke Donald
The former world No. 1 had missed 10 straight cuts and 15 of 17 to fall outside the top 600 in the world rankings. Yes, SIX hundred. So making the cut, even though it ended up in a tie for 54th, constitutes a big deal for Donald. His last top-10 on the PGA Tour came more than two years ago at the 2019 Valspar, in which he finished T9.

Rasmus Hojgaard
The 20-year-old Dane surprisingly popped up in the Zurich Classic field two weeks ago, and he also played the Valspar on a sponsor's invite. Even more curiously, he played the Zurich with 45-year-old Vaughn Taylor. Hojgaard missed the cut both times, right on the number this past week. Why was he here? We aren't quite sure. He's not in the field for the upcoming PGA Championship, so he wasn't tuning up stateside. Maybe he's just trying to dip his toe into the PGA Tour waters. His only other U.S. starts ever were a missed cut at last year's U.S. Open followed by a T37 at the alternate-field Bermuda Championship. Hojgaard already is a two-time European Tour winner and has been ranked as high as 63rd in the world. He now sits 103rd.

Emiliano Grillo
On Thursday morning, Grillo was leading the Valspar, reaching 5-under-par through 12 holes. On Friday evening, he was heading home after a 5-over 76 in the second round. He didn't make another birdie after that fast start. Grillo's normally excellent iron play was way off, and his putting was poor, as it usually is. That's a bad combination.

Patrick Reed
Reed doesn't miss a lot of cuts. He hasn't missed more than six in a calendar year since 2013. This Valspar early exit was his third of 2021. That's not alarming for someone who won at Torrey Pines and was top-10 at the Masters, but it is something to monitor.

Kevin Kisner
Kisner missed the cut for the fourth time in his past five starts and clearly is struggling. His only top-20 all year in nine starts was a T18 at the Match Play, which was not a very good finish for someone who was the winner and runner-up the previous two times. Kisner has fallen to 43rd in the world, his lowest standing since the 2019 Valspar. 

Adam Long
Long had nine top-25s last year and already has five this year, so he's kind of on pace there. But he missed his eighth cut of the season at the Valspar, and that already is more than last season's seven. And when you realize that all eight missed cuts came in the past 10 events, well, Long is in a big-time slide.

Chris Kirk
Kirk had been playing so well all year that a missed cut, while a bit surprising, was bound to happen at some point. The Valspar was only his second MC since September and he hadn't played well at Copperhead in the past.

Cameron Davis
The Golf Twitter darling made a big leap in the world rankings with a solo third at The American Express in January. He hasn't exactly been bad since then -- though he missed the cut at the Valspar -- but has sort of been treading water. Which is better than going under. Davis missed the cut in three of his past six starts, and his best result over that span was a T25 at the RBC Heritage.

Gary Woodland
Woodland continues to tumble, and he has slipped out of the top 60 in the world rankings after a fourth missed cut in seven starts. He showed a glimmer in early April with a T6 at the Texas Open, but that was an aberration, as it was his only top-15 result in about 10 months.