JOURNAL SPORTS
PEBBLE BEACH, Cal. – Choudrant resident Sam Burns charged up the leaderboard Sunday in the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and spent time tied for the lead at 20-under on the back nine before a three-putt par and a bogey on the 17th sank him to sixth in the first star-studded field of the 2026 PGA Tour season.
Burns was high on the leaderboard all four rounds, starting with a 63 on Thursday, and finished at 19-under par 269 on the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Links. He shot 67 on Friday, holed out on the first and last hole Saturday in a rocky even-par 72, and shot a closing 67 Sunday.
Collin Morikawa, a Bay Area native, followed a sensational 62 on Saturday with a closing 67 that featured a back nine run to the winning 22-under total.
In his third start of the season, in a “signature event” field with 42 of the world’s top 50 players, Burns made an early run Sunday with five front-nine birdies in erratic, often challenging weather conditions. He birdied holes 2-4 and 6-7 to move into the lead at 19-under, staying in the top four until a birdie at 13 pushed him back on top at 20-under.
But down the stretch, with winds off the Pacific Ocean impacting the field, Burns three-putted the par-5 14th to miss a birdie chance, then bogied the penultimate hole, the par-3 17th, which was into the teeth of the wind.
He was fifth in the field in putting for the four rounds, although he missed a six-footer for birdie on the 11th Sunday along with an 8-footer for birdie on 14.
In the first round, Burns poured in seven birdies on the back nine, posting a closing 29 that made him only the second pro since 1983 to go that low on Pebble Beach’s closing holes. He sank nearly 160 feet of putts.
Burns, a Shreveport native and former LSU All-American who plays out of Squire Creek Country Club, collected $690,000 of the $20 million purse. He will join the rest of the Tour’s top players in Los Angeles for next weekend’s Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club.
