Weekly Recap: Burns is the Word

When Scottie Scheffler faced off against Sam Burns in a playoff at the Charles Schwab Challenge on Sunday, it amplified how much this PGA Tour season is being dominated by just a handful golfers.

Scheffler had four wins coming in and Burns had two (as did Max Homa and Cam Smith). Either Scheffler would get to the otherworldly total of five titles or Burns would move up right on his heels with three.

You surely know by now that Burns defeated Scheffler with a miracle 38-foot putt from off the green on the first hole of sudden death to get that third title of the season. He now moves to No. 9 in the world. Burns began the year at No. 11, Scheffler was 12th, Smith was 21st and Homa was 35th.

The playoff also reinforced how little the top 10 players in the world at the end of 2021 have done this year and how deep the sport really is right now. There's not much more left to this season, only 12 more tournaments, and that includes the three-event playoffs.

The 10 players who led the OWGR as 2022 began have collectively won only two tournaments since the calendar flipped -- Jon Rahm at the Mexico Open and Justin Thomas at the PGA Championship (Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland won in the fall).

As with Thomas at the PGA, Burns came from seven shots back. He was done with his round some two hours before the final group, which included Scheffler.

Incredibly, there was a five-way tie for the lead early on the back nine and Burns was not part of it: Scheffler, Brendon Todd, Scott Stallings, Harold Varner and Davis Riley all were at 10-under, with Burns in the clubhouse a shot back. But Colonial is pretty tough for an old, short course, and with the wind really gusting, they all came back to the pack, and one of them, Varner, all but fell off a cliff. Burns surely benefited from finishing early, shooting 5-under 65 in better conditions.

Burns has now won four times in a little more than a year – only Scheffler has matched that. But in total, he has not been nearly as good as Scheffler, even after Sunday. In 2022, he has only three top-10s to Scheffler's 10. He's really been all or nothing this year, having also missed five of his 11 cuts. 

As good a sign as a second win in 10 weeks is for Burns, don't lose sight of what happened a week ago with his rather quiet tie for 20th at the PGA. It was by far his best showing in eight career majors, unlike Scheffler, who had been contending in many before winning the Masters.

For Burns to be considered in the same light as Scheffler, he needs to start doing better in majors. The PGA was a first step. Burns will get another chance in three weeks at Brookline.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Scottie Scheffler
The brief slump that Scheffler was in, if two events can be considered a slump, is over. Following a tie for 15th at the Byron Nelson and a bad-weather missed cut at the PGA, Scheffler nearly got back in the winner's circle. He's not going to win every time out, or even come close to that. You're just going to have to decide whether the highest DFS price or the lowest odds are worth paying for whenever Scheffler plays. Because it appears he will be in the mix more times than not.

Brendon Todd
Todd finished third, one stroke back, and that showed how effective he can be on shorter tracks. Mayakoba is a short course – he was 11th there. Pebble Beach – 16th. The Valero (not overly long) – 8th. RBC Heritage – 26th.

Scott Stallings
Stallings has been a pretty bad putter throughout his career, ranked outside the top-100 for eight straight years before this one. He's now ranked 28th. He was 12th in the field at Colonial, which translated into a tie for fourth on the leaderboard, his best showing all season. It moved Stallings to 57th in the point standings, which is far higher than anyone would've expected. His 2022 results are, to say the least, mixed. He's made only seven of 14 cuts, but five of those have been top-25s.

Davis Riley
Riley continues to impress with a tie for fourth – and to do that in your debut at Colonial, where experience really helps – is tremendous. He did have two bogeys and a double in his final six holes, so maybe the lack-of-experience factor kicked-in. But he's now finished 5-9-13-4 in his past four starts, and that doesn't include his runner-up to Burns at the Valspar. Riley is up to a career-best 94th in the world.

Tony Finau
Like Burns, Finau played far earlier than the others, and got to 7-under to tie for fourth. That comes a few tournaments after his runner-up to Jon Rahm at Mexico, so he's finally starting to return to form after a miserable fall season and start to 2022. Finau missed four of seven cuts to start the year but now has made seven in a row.

Jordan Spieth
Spieth tied for seventh, but based on all the pre-tournament build-up, not to mention his Colonial track record, this will be viewed as a disappointment. But he's still gone 1-2-34-7 in his past four starts.

Mito Pereira
Just making the cut would've been a huge accomplishment (Justin Thomas and Will Zalatoris did not). Not only did Pereira make it to the weekend, he thrived with a tie for seventh. In some ways, this week is more impressive than last week at the PGA. The future looks very bright.

Patrick Reed
Reed tied for seventh, and he really needed a good week. This was his first top-10 since – well, we don't want to include the Hero World Challenge or the woefully weak Bermuda field – so this was his first top-10 since last year's Memorial, which is coming up this week. After a stunning three-cut stretch earlier this season for a guy who normally misses very few, Reed has made six of seven. But he's far from the player he was about 15 months ago.

Kevin Na
Na (T7) surely does love Colonial, and he once again showed how good he is on a shorter course.

Cameron Davis
Rounding out the five-way tie for seventh, Davis also tied for third at Harbour Town last month. One of the biggest hitters on Tour is doing great on short tracks? Make a note of it.

Tyler Duncan
We like Duncan on shorter courses. He tied for 16th here after tying for 12th at Harbour Town. He made the cut at Pebble, and he's made more than half his cuts in 2022 (barely, seven of 13). Duncan was priced $6,300 on DraftKings for Colonial.

Harold Varner III
Varner was in that five-way tie for the lead early on the back nine. He then proceeded to shoot two triple-bogeys, two double-bogeys, a regular bogey and a birdie in the final seven holes fort a whopping 45 on the back. Varner didn't even finish in the top-25.

Collin Morikawa
Another week, another bad week, with a tie for 40th. Morikawa was his almost-typical self in SG: Approach, ranked seventh in the field, but he lost strokes to the field off the tee and on the greens. And to succeed under those conditions, you need to be even better on approach.

Jason Kokrak
The defending champion finished solo 67th. He has one top-10 since winning Colonial last year – a win at Houston.

Justin Thomas, Will Zalatoris and Abraham Ancer
All three guys who were in the mix at Southern Hills missed the cut. It' understandable for all of them. But Ancer is the guy to keep an eye to see how he bounces back this week at the Memorial.

Brian Harman and Gary Woodland
Both of these guys were among the most coveted in the Twitter talk leading up to Thursday, both part of the sweet spot in the upper $7,000s that also included Chris Kirk and Justin Rose. But the focus was clearly more on Harman and Woodland, and they both missed the cut, killing so many lineups. We weren't super high on Woodland, but we did like Harman. Rose also missed the cut. Kirk was the only one to deliver, tying for 15th.
 
Maverick McNealy
He missed the cut for the first time in seven months. It happens. 

Adri Arnaus
The 27-year-old Spaniard didn't play on the DP World Tour this past week, but he moved inside the top-50 for this first time in his career at 49th. Arnaus was coming off an impressive tie for 30th at the PGA Championship. He'll be at next month's U.S. Open, where he made the cut in his lone try in 2019.