NAME GAMES
Major winners Jason Day and Dustin Johnson move within final-round striking distance of leader Sam Burns
Between them, Dustin Johnson and Jason Day have 38 PGA Tour titles, including one major apiece. Johnson is the current World No. 1, the FedEx Cup champion and the reigning PGA player of the year. Day also held the top ranking for 51 weeks a few years back, although recent health and swing issues have seen him drop to a current 43rd.
In contrast, the five other guys within four strokes of the Vivint Houston Open lead going into the final round — 24-year-old Louisianan Sam Burns leads by a single swing — have zero PGA Tour titles combined and only Aaron Wise, who made to 46th once, has cracked the top 100.
Success in the majors? Burns tied for 29th in the PGA and Sepp Straka tied for 28th at the U.S. Open in 2019. It goes down from there.
But, as towhether such a pronounced haves/havenots disparity will matter in the least at Memorial Park Sunday, that remains to be seen. Day flat out dismissed the notion that he has any kind of edge over Burns, Carlos Ortiz, Straka, Dawie van der Walt and/or Wise, especially considering how much as he has struggled over the last couple years.
“I’d probably be a little bit more calm,” surmised the 32-year- old Australian because of his big-moment experience — never mind that hismost recent victory came in the 2018Wells Fargo Championship. “But everyone’s going to be nervous on the first tee tomorrow. What I sawout of Carlos and Sam (his final-pairing partners), I think they’re playing some pretty good golf, too. They’re going to be tough to beat tomorrow.”
Burns has fashioned rounds of 68, 65 and 68 for a 9-under cumulative score of 201, one better than Day and Ortiz. The latter, who’s from Guadalajara, Mexico, but played college golf at theUniversity ofNorthTexas, has been tied for second at the end of all three rounds with his 67, 68 and 67.
Day had to quit the CJ Cup in Las Vegas after something went haywire in his neck. That after he’d shot a 66 on Saturday to put himself back into nominal contention there. In midsummer, things were going so unevenly he decided to part ways with Colin Swatton, his coach and mentor since he was 12. Further, he should have left Memorial Park with a share of Burn’s lead but three-putted on18.
In short, he’s taking nothing for granted. At least his body is feeling OK. “No pain,” he said. Burns, who was not so long ago the best junior and collegiate player for LSU in the U.S. — he has the fancy trophies fromAJGAand the NCAA back home to prove it — was the 36-hole leader in the current season’s opening tournament, the Safeway Open in Napa, Calif. There, he stumbled badly on Saturday, meaning Houston, no matter what, represents progress.
After bogeys on the second and third holes could have sent him spiraling downward, Burns composed himself to the point that he finished the front nine with an eagle. Three birdies over a four-hole stretch and only one additional bogey followed on the far harder back side. To put that in context, none of the seven low scorers through 54 holes managed more than a single birdie after turning the corner.
“Fortunately, I’ve been in this situation a couple times now and recently in Napa,” Burns said. “I feel like I’ve learned a lot just about how important patience is. You don’t have to play perfect to win. Hopefully I can just build off (knowing) that and let’s see what happens.”
He called the eagle “a nice little bonus.”
Johnson, of course, lurks a mere three shots back after his bogey-free round of 66. That’s a hugely encouraging effort considering Houston is his first start since a sixth-place finish in the U. S. Open, following a six-week competitive hiatus brought on by a positive test for the novel coronavirus.
The 2016 U.S. Open champion bogeyed five holes on the front nine Thursday after noting, in a pre-tournament press conference, “My health is good. The state ofmy game is undetermined.”
If much less so now. “I’m very pleased with the way I played today,” Johnson said. “I hit a lot of really good putts that I thought were going in that did not, but obviously 4-under par around here is a really good score. I think I’m going to be in a pretty decent position going into tomorrow.”
Day, whose first Tour win came in Texas, at the 2010 Byron Nelson Classic, had shot himself into contention in the CJ Cup with a third-round 66, but took a triple bogey on the opening hole of the final round when he pulled his approach from the right rough into the water. He also pulled his next full shot on the second hole before deciding to call it a day.
Having intended to play every fall tournament to prepare for next week’s delayed Masters Championship, Day returned last week for the ZoZo Championship, moved from Japan to Thousand Oaks, Calif., because of the pandemic, and shot 6-under to finish in a tie for 60th.
TheAustrian Straka, also chasing a breakthrough Tour victory, is alone in fourth place at 203, a swing ahead of the fifth-place Johnson after his 66. Straka had held a share of the lead before bogeying the 17th hole. Van derWalt, a South African who lives in Kingwood, briefly got to the top of the board but lost three strokes to par on the back nine — he particularly lamented a three-putt mess on No. 16 — to fall into a sixth-place tie with Wise.
“I mean, I got off to a very nice start,” van der Walt said. “But I’m not driving the ball aswell as Iwant to. On a golf course like this (all 7,442 yards of it), you want to have some confidence off the tee. Hopefully I can just drive it better tomorrow. But I was putting nicely (until) I started leaking some oil there on the back.”
As might seemingly be the case with his fellow wannabee champions, none of whom are fretting over next week’s Masters, he contends that nerves shouldn’t bean issue. Inhis particular case, he’s playing on a sponsor’s exemption. His ranking for the momentis 600spots below Johnson’s.
“I feel like I don’t have much to lose and everything to gain,” van derWalt said. “I’m pretty calm, it’s just a matter of getting it done.”