The fall Tour’s breakout stars
By Bill Felber
1 Sam Burns
Betting on any particular player to be the breakout star of an entire PGA Tour season is chancy business at best. Having acknowledged that, Sam Burns is looking awfully good.
This is why Burns ranks at the top of the list of fall tour prospects. He made four starts, winning at Sanderson Farms and never finishing worse than 14th. He tied for fifth at the CJ Cup, the closest thing the fall tour has to a major championship.
The list of guys who finished behind Burns that week includes Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Gary Woodland, Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau, and Dustin Johnson. It also includes all but one of the guys who rank behind Burns on this top nine list.
The average standard deviation of a Sam Burns tournament this fall was -1.31. Let that marinade in your brain for a while. At a normal PGA Tour event, that’s solid top 10, pushing top five…and that’s Burns’s fall average. At this weekend’s RSM, four guys rated out at -1.21, each of them a tenth of a point below Burns’ fall average. They tied for fourth.
Burns’ record suggests he’s always had the ability. During the 2020-21 season, his Strokes Gained scores Off the Tee and Approaching the green totaled +0.715. That’s a good score. But this fall he’s improved them two and a half-fold, to a total of +1.784.
The result: a first place rank in FedEx Cup points and a 69.064 stroke average that is fourth behind only Wolff, Morikawa and Cam Smith.
Given his fall performance, the only real question regarding Burns is whether he can keep it up.