Sam Burns showed up at Royal Birkdale as an afterthought — not even sure he’d make the trip — and now he’s the man everyone’s chasing at the 2026 Open Championship.
Burns carded a 5-under 65 in Saturday’s third round to reach 10-under par, two shots clear of Si Woo Kim and Ryan Fox heading into the final round of the year’s last major. His back-to-back 62-65 across the second and third rounds gave him the lowest consecutive 36-hole score in major championship history.
He almost wasn’t here at all. Burns’s wife, Caroline, was expecting their second child in mid-July. Their daughter, Belle, arrived 11 days early — early enough that Burns made a last-Friday decision to fly to England, his agent Brett Falkoff having kept the entry alive just in case.
“Obviously crazy when you have a newborn, and I’m sure crazier for my wife not having me there to help,” Burns told NBC Sports’ Cara Banks. “Not that I can do much, but she’s a rock star, and thankfully she’s such an incredible mom. Ultimately, that’s the reason I came over here. She said, ‘I’ve got it under control over here, so you try to go over there and take care of business.'”
The 29-year-old from Shreveport, Louisiana, is after his first major. He came painfully close at last month’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, where a missed putt on the final hole left him one shot behind Wyndham Clark. Burns said he stewed on it for a couple days, then moved on.
“Being able to come play here was a bonus this week,” he said. “I kind of didn’t think there was any possibility. So I’m excited. I think it’s a great challenge tomorrow. And ultimately, whatever happens, you know, I can live with the result.”
Royal Birkdale has been defenseless all week. Near-perfect weather, receptive greens, barely a whisper of wind — conditions so tame that three players shot 62 over two days, tying the single-round major record. Burns and Lucas Herbert did it Friday. Fox matched it Saturday, making nine birdies — eight from inside ten feet.
“We’ve had perfect weather this week,” Fox told Banks. “You feel like this golf course can kind of go either way. If you get it going bad, it’ll bite you really quickly, but if you hit a lot of good shots, you feel like you’ve got some chances.”
Eight rounds of 62 have now been recorded in major championship history. Four of them have come at Birkdale — Branden Grace got there first in 2017, and now Burns, Herbert, and Fox have joined him. But the 62 is no golden ticket. Of the seven players who’ve done it before Fox, only Xander Schauffele turned his into a victory, at the 2024 PGA Championship.
Kim and Fox sit at 8-under. Ryan Gerard and Herbert are at 7-under. Bryson DeChambeau, Jackson Suber, and Ludvig Aberg lurk at 6-under — six players within four shots of the lead, all with 18 holes to play on a course that’s surrendering birdies like a slot machine that’s been unplugged.
Burns has the lead, the lowest 36-hole stretch in major history, and a fresh daughter at home he hasn’t met yet. Sunday at Birkdale will tell us whether the trip was worth it.
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