Southport (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Sam Burns was not even planning to tee off at Royal Birkdale until his daughter was born early, but now stands on the brink of his first major at the British Open. The American will take a two-shot lead into Sunday’s final round after backing up his second round 62, which tied the lowest score ever at a major, with a 65 to get to 10 under par for the tournament.
“Whatever happens, I know that I can accept the outcome, and life’s going to move on. I’ll get to go home and see my family,” said the world number 18. “I hope I’m taking some hardware with me, but if I’m not, that’s fine too.”
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Burns’ wife Caroline was due to give birth to the couple’s second child two days before the tournament began. But when baby Belle arrived 11 days early, she was the driving force behind convincing Burns to make the trip across the Atlantic Ocean.
“This golf tournament was honestly so far off of my radar and expectations of playing,” he added. “Caroline’s due date was Tuesday this week. She was like four days late with our son. I just didn’t think there was any possible way and little Belle had different plans for us.”
Even after she was born, after a couple of days, I wasn’t thinking much about it. Caroline was kind of like, ‘so what are you thinking for next week?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know. Should we talk about it?’ She was like, ‘yeah.’ Ultimately she’s the one that really encouraged me to come over and play. She basically said ‘I’ve got this at home. Go over there and give it your best’, and here we are.”
Burns came agonisingly close to his major breakthrough just last month when he missed out by one shot at the US Open to Wyndham Clark. With his game in good shape, he said it was the mental challenge of leaving his family behind he had to overcome and lent on close friend and world number one Scottie Scheffler for advice.
Scheffler said before going on to win the British Open last year at Royal Portrush that he would quit the sport if it ever affected his family life. “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,” said Burns.
“I actually called Scottie 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.”
But Burns is not sure if he subscribes to the “nappy factor” that frees up golfers psychologically in the wake of having a child. “If I was aware of that, I’d have like eight kids by now,” he laughed.
© 2024 AFP
