Sam Burns beat Scottie Scheffler in a brilliant semi-final matchup, then cruised his way past Cameron Young in the final, 6&5, to capture the WGC-DELL Technologies Matchplay title.
Burns, whose last victory came in Texas at the Charles Schwab Challenge last May, made 47 birdies along the way in an impressive showing.
In the semi-final, Burns held a one up lead heading into the 18th hole, and then nearly holed out a chip to close out Scheffler. But he then missed an 11 footer that would have closed out the reigning champion and Scheffler stepped up and buried a putt from just inside five feet to get the match square.
Scheffler appeared to be on the cusp of a win on the second extra hole, but missed a short putt that kept the match going. On the 21st hole of the day, Burns finally beat his good friend with a curling 15 footer.
In the final, Burns was one down after the second hole, but the putter got hot again, and he used a wild run of long putts — including a 20 footer on No. 8, a 12 footer on No. 10 and a 24 footer on No. 12 —. All told, Burns made eight birdies in the last 10 holes, closing out Young on the 13th hole.
‘My putter was really good today,’ Burns said. ‘I’ve been putting it well all week and I knew that if we could just get the ball in position, give ourselves lots of chances, hopefully they would go in.’
‘All I can take away is that I played really well. Just thankful to get myself all the way here,’ Young said. ‘I feel like I had a bunch of really tough opponents and just ran into Sam Burns playing really well today. We all know he’s one of the best players in the world, and when he’s on top of it, he might be the best player in the world. Today he was against me. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. I’m playing really well, so I’m just looking forward to the next few weeks.’
Rory McIlroy came out on top in his heavyweight clash with World Number One Scottie Scheffler in the consolation match, winning 2&1 to finish third, and moves to the top of the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex.
