Burns captures Match Play trophy
Sam Burns went on a tear Sunday afternoon with eight birdies on his final 10 holes and enough help from Cameron Young for a 6-and-5 victory to win the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. It was the second-largest margin in an 18-hole match in this tournament.
Burns won for the fifth time on the PGA Tour.
Young, who had a late rally with clutch birdies to eliminate Rory McIlroy in the semifinals, had to settle for his sixth runner-up finish in the last 18 months.
Burns made it to the championship match Sunday afternoon only when defending champion Scottie Scheffler missed a 4-foot birdie putt on the 20th hole of their semifinal match. Given new life, Burns made birdie from a fairway bunker with a 15-foot putt to advance.
Young had a brief lead early in the title match, and then Burns was unstoppable. He won five of the next six holes. Young had to make a 20-foot birdie putt to halve the 11th hole, and then Young hit into the water on each of the next two holes.
Burns won $3.5 million from the $20 million purse. Young, who won $2.2 million, now has six runnerup finishes in the last two seasons.
McIlroy defeated Scheffler, 2 and 1, in the consolation match.
PGA TOUR >> Matt Wallace of England ran off four straight birdies down the stretch and closed with two solid pars for a 6-under 66, giving him a one-shot win in the Corales Puntacana Championship for his first PGA Tour title.
Wallace was on the putting green when Nicolai Hojgaard, the 22-year-old from Denmark playing on a sponsor exemption, had a 20-foot birdie putt on the 18th that would have forced a playoff. The putt just missed on the low side, giving the Dane a 68.
Wallace, already a fourtime winner on the European tour, finished at 19-under 269 in winning in his 80th career start on the PGA Tour.
Hojgaard had a long twoputt birdie on the par-5 14th, and a clutch 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th hole to get within one and have a chance to catch Wallace. His putt narrowly missed, and he had to settle for being the runner-up.
Tyler Duncan (68) and PGA Tour rookie Sam Stevens (69) tied for third. LPGA TOUR >> Celine Boutier of France beat Georgia Hall of England with a birdie on the first playoff hole to win the LPGA Drive on Championship.
Boutier forced a playoff by making a testy birdie putt at the par-5 18th to close out a 4-under 68, matching Hall (65) at 20-under 268 at Superstition Mountain in the tour's first full-field event of the season.
Playing the 18th hole again, neither golfer found the green with their second shot of the playoff. Boutier, chipping from nearly the same spot as she did in regulation short and right of the green, pitched to about 4 feet. Meanwhile, Hall hit her second shot into a greenside bunker, blasted beyond the hole and failed to convert her birdie effort. That set the stage for Boutier's winning birdie putt.
With the victory, the 29-year-old Boutier claimed her third LPGA victory and became the winningest French player on tour, moving past Patricia Meunier-Lebouc and Anne-Marie Palli. She had previously won the 2019 ISPS Handa Vic Open and 2021 ShopRite Classic
Japan's Ayaka Furue closed with a 65 and finished third at 19 under. Na Rin An of South Korea was alone in fourth at 18 under with a closing 67, while American Ally Ewing (67) and South Korea's Jin Young Ko (68) were another stroke back in fifth.
PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS >> David Toms fired a 7-under 65 for a four-stroke, wireto-wire win at The Galleri Classic to become the first two-time winner on the PGA Tour Champions this season.
Toms closed out his second win in three starts and fourth Champions victory with an eight-birdie, onebogey performance at Mission Hills Country Club to claim the $330,000 winner's share.
Steven Alker of New Zealand used a round of five birdies — four on the back nine — to finish alone in second after a closing 67.
Retief Goosen had a final-round 65 and tied Paul Stankowski (66) for third at 11 under. Vijay Singh (68), Padraig Harrington (68), Miguel Angel Jiménez (68), Steve Stricker (69) and Stricker's brother-in-law, Mario Tiziani (67), were at 10 under.
Toms added the Galleri title to his win at the Cologuard Classic earlier this month for his first multiplewin season on the over-50 tour since joining in 2017. The win vaulted him into first place in the Charles Schwab Cup standings. EUROPEAN TOUR AND SUNSHINE TOUR >> Nick Bachem of Germany closed with an 8-under 64 for a fourshot victory in the Jonsson Workwear Open, capturing his first European tour title that comes with a two-year exemption.
Bachem was the only contender at The Club at Steyn City to not drop a shot on the back nine.