OAKMONT, Pa. — It wasn’t the kind of round that would impress, say, Johnny Miller, who once shot 63 around this place and has been forever associated with that score as he was the first player to accomplish it in a major championship.
Miller, who won the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont has famously—or infamously—been known to talk about that day without reservation. Although he is retired from a long and successful career in the broadcast booth, the golf Hall of Famer and two-time major winner did reunite for a time Friday on the NBC airways, and undoubtedly the subject was broached.
So Sam Burns’s 65 during the second round wasn’t going to get Miller up out of his chair, but it was pretty special nonetheless. It’s not like the rest of the field is torching the treacherous layout and Burns’s 65 came at an opportune time after having played his last four holes in 5 over on Thursday to shoot 72. (He trailed leaders J.J. Spaun and Thriston Lawrence as the second round continued.)
“I played really well yesterday other than the finishing holes,” said Burns, who lost in a playoff Sunday to Ryan Fox at the RBC Canadian Open. “So I think today was just kind of getting mentally ready to come out and try to put a good round together. I feel like I’ve been playing well coming off last week and into this week and my round yesterday. Really just trying to get yourself in position out here and give yourself as many looks as you can.”
Burns might have been excused if he were seething after Thursday’s round. He was playing quite nicely, 3 under for his round through 14 holes, then went bogey-double-bogey-bogey to finish. He turned an under-par score into a disappointing 72 and was six shots behind first-round leader J.J. Spaun.
But Burns, 28, has been around for a bit now. His tie for ninth last year at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst was his first top 10 in a major championship. There were some lessons learned there, including patience. Also, U.S. Opens are associated with bogeys and doubles and it’s managing them and not letting them lead to more.
“I played a really nice round of golf, and I think you get out of position here, and the golf course will bite you,” said Burns, who has won five times on the PGA Tour. “It was unfortunate, but there was too much good to focus on the little bit of bad.”
Part of the bad was an uncharacteristically poor putting day. Burns leads the PGA Tour in strokes-gained putting and had a good day Friday with 27 putts, ranking third in the field. He was outside the top 100 during the first round, although his troubles toward the end of the round went beyond that.
“I think at times, trying to be a little too perfect around major championship golf courses, and I think especially around here, honestly it kind of forces you to take your medicine because a lot of times that's the only option you have,” Burns said.
“I think for this golf course, you really just have to free it up. It’s too hard to try to guide it around here. You’re going to hit some in the rough, you’re going to hit some in some bad spots, you might as well do it with authority.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a fun weekend.”
One of Burns’s best friends is Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1-ranked player in the world and three-time major champion who has worked hard to improve his putting although he has yet to enter Burns’s league in that area.
Scheffler is having an off week for him, well back of the lead after having shot his sixth consecutive U.S. Open round over par. He is at 144, 4 over par and trails Burns by seven shots.
“He plays golf, I think, very freely, and he’s got really good natural instincts when it comes to his putting, and a lot of it is just very reactionary,” Scheffler said. “He’s got good fundamentals, good instinct, and he putts very reactionary. That’s really all there is to it, it’s as simple as that.”
Burns also tried to explain his approach to putting.
“I practice it a lot. I try to keep it very simple,” he said. “I think if you look at putting, the ball is rolling on the ground. There’s a lot of imperfections on grass. There’s a lot of different lines the ball can go in, depending on the speed, so if you try to be too perfect with putting it can drive you crazy, so I just try to really read it, put a good roll on it, focus on the speed and hope for the best.”
Seems simple enough.
But it doesn’t hurt to work at it, too.
After the best round of the tournament—and tying for third best in U.S. Open history at Oakmont behind Miller’s 63 and a 64 by Loren Roberts in 1994—and dealing with media obligations, Burns was practicing on the huge putting green that shares the 9th green.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Sam Burns Fires Friday 65 at Oakmont to Soar Into Contention at U.S. Open.