Sam Burns learned U.S. Open fate. Dad’s words then bring him to tears

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Sam Burns’ fate could wait. Because Bear Burns couldn’t. 

Could dad play ball?

Years ago, Sam had asked that of his dad, and Sunday, Sam could, just a short while after balling around the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club defense in a manner that embodied Jalen Brunson, who’d just won an NBA title for the local Knicks, and whose No. 11 blue-and-orange jersey could be spotted throughout the crowd. After beginning his U.S. Open final round seven strokes out of the lead, Burns finished 72 holes down one, and the leader, Wyndham Clark, on the 16th hole. A little after 6 p.m., Burns walked about 100 yards from the clubhouse to a player support building and started to watch the NBC broadcast.   

At 6:23, he came back out. Bear, his 2-year-old son, had found one of the white rubber balls the kids use for autographs, and, on Father’s Day, dad and son played with it while sitting in a golf cart. 

“I think it’s a crazy life we live sometimes,” Sam said later. 

“Bear is 2 now, and we show up [to a tournament], and he’ll say, ‘Is this Bear’s new house?’ We’ll say, ‘Kind of, it’s your new house for the week.’ We get a courtesy car; he’ll say, ‘Bear’s new car?’ We’ll say, ‘Yeah, for the week.’ We’ll have some explaining to do at some point.

“Yeah, I think, you know, as a competitor, you want to go out there and compete as hard as you can and try to win, but at the end of the day, when you’re off the golf course, it’s really not that important, and family is a lot more important than golf.”

Clark birdied 16. He was up two. Dad and son returned to watch, Bear running ahead of him.

Clark bogeyed 17. He was up one. On 18, Clark hit his tee shot a couple feet into the right rough. At 6:34, Burns walked back out and went to the nearby range. To the left of it was a large color monitor showing what was unfolding. 

Todd Burns was there, rolling around Shinnecock this week in a scooter after recently tearing his left meniscus, and he’d been there for the start of his son’s golf. The Burnses, Sam said, were always a football family — Todd and another son, Chase, both played in college — but they were also golf nuts. “I would just go out there and run around and mess with them,” Sam said. “Mainly I started using a golf club as a weapon against my older brother. He’s eight years older. Had to defend myself with something.

“Yeah, that’s kind of how I got into it.”

At 6:38, Burns paused his hitting, while Clark hit his second on 18. Had anyone seen this coming? The largest 54-hole U.S. Open deficit previously overcome had also been seven, in 1960. But Burns birdied 1. Then 3. Then 5. Then 8, which tied him for the lead. On 18, he had a 17-foot birdie putt that would have again tied Clark, but it brushed past the right side of the hole, and Burns fell to his knees. “To have the chance on 18,” he said, “I really thought I made that putt. I hit it exactly how I wanted with the speed I wanted and just didn’t go in.”

Clark’s second shot dropped 52 feet from the hole. Burns continued to hit.

At 6:44, Clark hit his putt to 9 inches. Burns didn’t watch the rest. He put an iron back into his bag and unfastened his golf glove. 

He walked over to his dad, who was standing. They slapped hands, and Todd put his arm around his son’s shoulder. He whispered a sentence to him. 

“Yeah, he just said he was really proud,” Burns said. 

He started to tear up. 

“Sorry.”

He continued. 

“Just said he was proud, and I think — I think we both knew how special it could have been for Father’s Day, but I know he’s proud.”

A year ago at the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, Burns had held the 54-hole lead, but stumbled to a Sunday 78. That, he said, was a loss. This wasn’t. On Sunday, only two players shot better than his 67. “I think I did my best, and I did everything I could to have a chance to win today,” Burns said. “Like I said, I started the day seven shots back. That’s very difficult to overcome, especially someone who is playing as well as Wyndham has been playing. That was really the difference today.”

Burns made his way to interviews, then stopped. 

He hugged his wife, Caroline, who he said is 37 weeks pregnant.

And Bear. 

“I think it’s one of the reasons we work so hard and practice as hard as we do, to have chances at winning golf tournaments,” Burns said. “It’s just not very often we have a chance to win a major on a Father’s Day.

“I think just the weight of that and knowing what that memory could have been like, it would have been really special.”