Southport, England. When the final round of the US Open was played at Shinnecock Hills roughly one month ago, only Sam Burns put forward a clear effort in seeking to overtake eventual winner Wyndham Clark during the final round.

Burns had excellent birdie opportunities at both the 17th and 18th holes and each time missed by the tiniest of margins and had to settle for a runner-up finish.

Burns’ profile has seen a steady progression up the elite level ladder with regular intersections with the sport’s most impactful events. At the 2025 US Open at Oakmont he was in contention for the bulk of the championship until he received a non-favorable ruling on his ball being in casual water in the fairway.

Burns was on the USA Ryder Cup team at Bethpage last year and his play — both prior and after this year’s US Open has been at a high level.

The 29-year-old got off to a slow start for Royal Birkdale. His opening round ended with three consecutive bogies and all visible appearances showed a golfer who likely would be heading home after two rounds.

But as if someone flipped a switch, his fortunes started heating up – no pun intended. Just a few minutes after Lucas Herbert had scored a record tying 18-hole major championship score of 62, Burns matched it and did so with a flourish – holing out from a greenside bunker at the 18th for a closing birdie and matching score.

The momentum from Friday’s play carried over to Saturday’s third round. How good has Burns been over the last 36 holes? Only one bogey shows up on his impressive turn around. His combined score over the two middle rounds is 127 — a record in The Open Championship.

Interestingly, prior to the start of The Open there was a very real possibility Burns would not have even played given the pending birth of his second child. On July 3, Sam’s wife Carolina gave birth to a daughter named Belle. Given the new addition to his growing family, Sam was hesitant to the point of withdrawing from The Open.

Caroline urged Sam to play in the event and only upon the final day of entries did Burns commit to being in the field at Royal Birkdale. The decision for Sam was a difficult one to make.

“But I think, more so if anything, it was mental. If I could get over the mental hurdle of leaving my family and being halfway across the world, I think that was going to be the bigger challenge for me.

“I actually called Scottie (Scheffler) the week before just to talk to him about it, just to kind of see if I was thinking the right way about the situation. He gave me some good words of encouragement, and just my wife and I kind of had a conversation about it every day.

“She said, I’ve got this under control. We’re good. You should go over and play.”

The leaderboard for Sunday’s final round features no less than 18 players within six shots of the lead. A two-shot lead is hardly a safe cushion and Burns will need to overcome two clear hurdles – returning to the winner’s circle — something he has not done since securing his fifth PGA Tour title back in 2023. And the second is an even higher mountain to scale — winning his first major championship.

Sunday pressure at a major championship has no peer and while Burns has been in the thick of such matters in previous occurrences, the wherewithal to cross the finish line ahead of all others remains to be done.

“I think kind of like I just mentioned, I mean, the margin is so thin that I just haven’t quite been able to hole that extra putt or make that extra chip or whatever it is. I feel like at times I’ve played well enough to win, and also, I feel like there’s times where maybe I’ve back-doored a top ten or back-doored a top five. So, it looks really good on paper, but I haven’t necessarily felt as close as maybe I thought I should to win.

“I think ultimately it comes down to being able to go out there and execute. I feel like, when I’ve been close, I haven’t been able to do that as well as I would like to. That will be the game plan for tomorrow; just try to go out there and give myself as many looks as possible on the greens and see what happens.”

Winning a major championship provides the ultimate benchmark in separating yourself from others seeking to do likewise.

He also outlined some critical lessons from past situations when in contention.

“If anything, I’ve played a bit too aggressive and maybe hit some wrong shots at the wrong times. I think, especially when — it’s not very often you get a perfect number and a perfect wind direction out on the golf course. So, I think in some of the past situations, I would have tried to maybe take a flag on or try to do something crazy.

“Just realizing that getting the ball on the green to 40 feet is not a bad thing, especially in major championships and getting a putter in my hand. So, I think just try to learn from some of those different situations.”

The fire that Burns blazed Friday and Saturday is now in the rear-view mirror.

Sunday at The Open on a firm and fast Royal Birkdale will be the consummate test to see if Burns can remain on fire all the way to the pronouncement of the illustrious words — “champion golfer of the year.”

How apt — a trial by fire.

Yes indeed.

***

Thisa & Thata

• Sam Burns of the United States of America is leading The Open heading into the final round by two strokes from Ryan Fox and Si Woo Kim. Burns is ten-under-par. Following up his 62 of yesterday, Burns shot a five-under-par 65 in the third round to set a new record of 127 for the middle 36 holes at The Open, breaking the previous record of 130 by three strokes.

• Burns is making his sixth appearance in The Open and has a previous best finish of tied-31st at Royal Troon in 2024, when he started the final-round one shot out of the lead. If he wins Sunday Burns would be the fourth consecutive Champion Golfer of the Year to come from the USA, the first streak of four American winners since 2003 to 2006.

• Ryan Fox started today eight strokes behind (tied-52nd) the leader Lucas Herbert and is now in joint second place two strokes behind Sam Burns. After the first round, Fox was seven strokes behind the leader in tied 85th position. Fox is looking to become the second winner of The Open from New Zealand following in the footsteps of Bob Charles who won at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1963. With a current Official World Golf Ranking of 56, Fox would be the lowest-ranked winner of The Open since Darren Clarke in 2011 (Clarke was ranked 111th). Playing in his tenth Open, Fox’s best finish to date is tied-16th at Royal Portrush in 2019.

• Si Woo Kim enters the final round in joint-second place. This is Kim’s eighth appearance in The Open and his previous best finish is tied-15th at St Andrews in 2022. Kim is two strokes behind Sam Burns and would be the first winner of The Open from South Korea.

• Stroke average for the third round was 70.256 and the cumulative figure for the three rounds so far is 70.766. Cumulatively for the third round the field was 20-over-par, and they are 298-over-par for the three rounds.

•  The hardest hole of the third round was the 6th with a stroke average of 4.346. There were six birdies, 44 pars, 23 bogeys and five double-bogeys on the 6th today.

• The easiest hole of the day for the third-round running was the par-5 17th with a stroke average of 4.577, and there were six holes that played under-par (the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 14th and 17th). There were three eagles, 37 birdies, 31 pars, four bogeys and three double-bogeys at the 17th.

• There were no bogey-free rounds in the third round. Ryan Fox’s score of 62 was the lowest of the third round.

Longest Drive, Fairways Hit and Greens in Regulation: Jon Rahm averaged the longest drive in the third round with 361.0 yards. Drives are measured on the 14th and 17th. Rahm also hit the longest drive of the day with a drive of 382.7 yards on the 17th. Two players were tied at the top for driving accuracy in the third round with twelve of 14 fairways hit (Casey Jarvis and Sahith Theegala). Sam Burns was at the top of the greens in regulation statistic with 17 out of 18 greens hit. Ryan Fox was the best putter in the field, taking 25 putts over the 18 holes, an average of 1.39 putts per green.

• 69 of the 122 Opens to have been held since the format was changed to 72-holes in 1892, have been won by a player in the lead or joint-lead after 54-holes. Only thirteen players have come back from four or more strokes behind the leader after 54-holes to win The Open. The most recent comeback from four or more strokes behind was in 2022 when Cameron Smith started the final round four strokes behind Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland.

• The largest comeback was ten strokes in 1999 by Paul Lawrie.

• Overall Tommy Fleetwood and Bryson DeChambeau now have six consecutive rounds under 70 in The Open (second round 2025 to third round 2026). Fleetwood and DeChambeau are now tied-second on the list of the most consecutive rounds under 70 with Nick Price, Henrik Stenson, Brian Harman and Scottie Scheffler.

• Ernie Els holds the record with seven consecutive rounds under 70 (first round 1993 to third round 1994). Scheffler’s run of consecutive rounds under 70 came to an end today with his round of 70. The only other current streak carried forward from The 153rd Open is held by Shane Lowry (four rounds).

• There are 12 different players that have managed to score four consecutive rounds in the 60s in an Open (Ernie Els 1993 and 2004, Greg Norman 1993, Nick Price 1994, Jesper Parnevik 1994, Tiger Woods 2000, Rickie Fowler 2014, Henrik Stenson 2016, Jordan Spieth 2017 and 2021, Collin Morikawa 2021, Mackenzie Hughes 2021, Nicolai Højgaard 2026 and Scottie Scheffler 2026).

• Of the twelve players, Norman, Price, Woods, Stenson, Spieth (2017), Morikawa and Scheffler achieved this when winning The Open. After three rounds of The 154th Open there are five players with a chance to score four rounds in the 60s – Shane Lowry (69, 68, 69), Tommy Fleetwood (69, 67, 69), Si Woo Kim (68, 67, 67), Bryson DeChambeau (67, 68, 69) and Ryan Gerard (67, 67, 69).

Related: Todd Clements Takes Two-Shot Lead Into Corales Puntacana Final Round

The Englishman reached 18-under with a third-round 67, leaving Ben James as his closest challenger before Sunday’s finish in the Dominican Republic.

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