Sam Burns, Scottie Scheffler playoffs at Colonial showcase America’s thriving, young golf landscape
The Sam Burns-Scottie Scheffler match at the 2022 Charles Schwab Challenge looks easy to classify. Best friends (according to Burns) who used to consider themselves road mates on the PGA Tour have taken control at Colonial Country Club for the right to kick off a thrilling summer on the PGA Tour. Two extremely competitive 25-year-olds, brothers off the field but a gladiator.
Playoffs are also binary. There is a winner and a loser. It is very simple. However, to describe it on its own like this, would totally understate the ending for this event because the Burns-Scheffler playoff, no matter how it ends, is a win before it even begins. .
To understand why, you have to pull the lens back to this league and perhaps even this season. Once Brendon Todd fails to land his bunker shot on the 72nd hole of the tournament and Scheffler or Burns are guaranteed another win, that means the two will combine for at least seven wins. won the 2021-22 PGA Tour season.
This is just one less than the combined total of all the golfers who qualified for the international team at this year’s Presidents Cup. That’s daddy than compared to the combined total of all the golfers who qualified for the European team at next year’s Ryder Cup.
Four of those went to Scheffler, who on Sunday tried to finish something that hasn’t been accomplished since 1980 by winning five times in a season before June 1. Despite the start date The beginning of the season has fluctuated over the years, but it would be virtually impossible to attribute Scheffler’s five-win collection to a lengthy campaign that now extends into the previous fall due to Scheffler’s failure to No win this season (and in his career) most recently on Feb. 1. He didn’t win his first win until two weeks later at the WM Phoenix Open, and then That’s where it all started to go downhill. The Arnold Palmer Invitational was followed by the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play and the 2022 Masters. The near miss at Colonial would be the fifth of his last nine appearances.
It’s rare to win five times in a year, and doing so before the summer is unheard of. Scheffler almost became the first golfer since Tom Watson in 1980 to pull it off. Watson ended that season with seven wins. Since then, only Nick Price, Vijay Singh, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods (10 times) have won five or more times in a year; However, none of them achieved the feat before June 1.
It’s not just a win for Scheffler. He currently earns just over $11.2 million this season and $1 million less than the all-time single-season money record set by Spieth in 2014-15 when he brought in just over 12. millions of dollars. Scheffler still has three months left. And while wallets are on the rise in the modern era, the competition has also become fiercer. Winning $11.2 million in a single season is impressive in any era, and Scheffler still has some events to go before Spieth, which he almost certainly will.
The extent of the burn wasn’t very good, but that bar was phenomenally high. He remains one of the few best players outside of Scheffler and is the only Tour player to have one of Scheffler’s four wins this season. Burns is second in the FedEx Cup standings behind Scheffler. He’s 9th in the Official World Golf Ranking, while Scheffler is No. 1. Combined, they’ve made over $17 million this season with three more months to go.
Burns is possibly the most underrated player on the planet. As a thought exercise, consider all the golf fans you know and now try and determine how many of them can tell you that Burns is ranked in the top 9 on this list. around the world against the likes of Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka.
As a reminder, Burns wasn’t even on the 2021 US Ryder Cup team that played Europe on September 19 last year at Whistling Straits. He was one of the first few to be left behind. Scheffler was probably the last to do so. While the Euros may lose some of their players to the unannounced LIV Golf tournament (if the DP World Tour decides to ban them from future Ryder Cups), the US is somehow becoming should be stronger.
The Burns-Scheffler playoffs are emblematic of a year in which eight of the top 12 tournaments (determined by field strength) were won by Americans in their 20s. Golf is undeniably younger and better – Rory McIlroy is now the oldest player in the world’s top 10 – and the US has been at the forefront of that movement.
This is not always the case. Back to the 2004 Ryder Cup. Jay Haas was the 50-year-old captain’s choice. Imagine that’s happening right now! Tiger Woods is the only golfer on the team in his 20s, and he’s 28. If you pick an American Ryder Cup team today, the majority will be in their 20s and you can a team of 12 people in which everyone yes in his 20s and probably still fighting for the trophy.
Burns was muted on Sunday in response to his own first shot to win. After sinking a similar bomb to win the Valsper Championship against Davis Riley earlier this year, he unleashed a combination of fist pumps that would have produced the best fit for Anderson Silva. with him. At Colonial, however, he simply acknowledged the crowd and picked his ball out of the cup. Scheffler still has to try, and there’s a chance he’ll cover Burns’ birdie with one of his own. (The way that Scheffler’s season has passed, it’s probably like a piece of rags.)
Burns’ low reaction may have been more out of respect for someone a family member than a prominent colleague in the group. The two hugged and complimented each other in post-round interviews, talking about how they hope to see more of them in the years to come.
Burns’ throw flips some of the stories. Scheffler’s run away with the Player of the Year award is probably still going to happen, but now is not a guarantee. Burns now has the expectation of competing at major championships. This is what a single shot can do.
One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the way we think about the future of American youth golf on the PGA Tour and in team events. That was set this year and simply crystallized on Sunday as these two wrestled for a tartan jacket. I can’t help but think that Burns’ conservative reaction was an admission that it doesn’t matter who wins.
This 25-year-old American all-star playoff is simply a symbol of what the pinnacle of the golf world is like right now and what it might look like for a long time to come.
