JACKSON, miss. (AP) – Sam Burns shot four birdies in a six-hole course to start the second nine and pulled away at 5 under 67 to win the Sanderson Farms Championship on Sunday for his second PGA Tour win of the year to win .
Against a list of contenders looking for their first win, Burns at the Country Club of Jackson showed what it takes by playing flawlessly on the second nine until it no longer mattered.
He took control with a 15-foot birdie putt on the 13th 4 15th for a tap-in birdie.
With two strokes in the lead, he took 18th place and secured a one-shot victory over the revitalized Nick Watney and PGA Tour rookie Cameron Young with a safe bogey from the green bunker.
Watney, who had his worst season in more than a decade, finished with a 65 and had his best result in more than three years.
Young’s hopes began to fade on the 14th with a clunk from the rough into a fairway bunker, which resulted in him having to do a 4-foot bogey.
Even so, he slicked up and down from the 18th green for par, which gave him a 68 and a stake in second place, which sets him up well for the season.
With his second win of the year – at his first start into the new season – Burns moved into the top 20 of the world rankings for the first time. It ended a trend where six of the last seven Sanderson Farms Championship winners took their first PGA Tour titles.
LPGA TOUR
GALLOWAY, NJ (AP) – Celine Boutier scored two of her last three holes with a birdie of 8 under 63 and won the ShopRite LPGA Classic when South Korea’s top two players stalled on Sunday.
Boutier started the final lap five strokes behind, shooting six birdies on the top nine of the windy Bayside Course at Seaview to join a growing list of competitors.
The 27-year-old from France punched a 12-foot birdie putt at # 16 and then the par-5 18th from 5 feet with a birdie to set the target at 14-under 199.
Jin Young Ko and Inbee Park, who shared the lead until the last lap, were unable to catch up with them.
Ko and Park were one stroke behind 18th place. Ko hit a fairway metal on the right side of the green, leaving her about 70 feet away. She limped about 8 feet short. Park wasn’t long enough to get home in two pieces, and her wedge ran about 3 feet.
Both missed their birdie putts, giving Boutier her second LPGA Tour win and her first on American soil. Her previous win was the 2019 Vic Open in Australia, two weeks before the LPGA Tour was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Brooke Henderson from Canada landed 18th for a 64 and also landed one stroke behind. Park and Ko each closed with a 69.
EUROPEAN TOUR
NS. ANDREWS, Scotland (AP) – England’s Danny Willett celebrated his birthday by finishing 4-under 68 for a one-two in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
The former Masters champion took the lead with three strokes in the final round of the European Tour event, which was held on the Old Course in St. Andrews. At the age of 18 under 270, Willett clinched his eighth professional win and his first since the BMW PGA Championship in September 2019.
Willett turned 34 on Sunday.
Englishman Tyrrell Hatton, two-time Dunhill Links champion, shot 67 and finished second with Swede Joakim Lagergren (66th).
Willett extended his lead to four in the early stages. He was caught briefly by Richard Bland (68), but birdies in ninth and tenth place gave him another three-shot lead and eight pars on the difficult final straight rounded off the victory.
Bland made the fourth four birdies in a row and added another on the ninth to take the lead. He was fourth with Shane Lowry (68).
OTHER TOURS
Sophia Schubert finished with a 4 under 68 and made an eagle on the par 5 18th in the third playoff hole to beat Fatima Fernandez Cano (70) from Spain and win the Carolina Golf Classic on the Symetra Tour. Schubert and Cano finished with 18 under 270. Emilia Migliaccio, who played as an amateur, screwed her last two holes with a 66 and took third place with Brittany Marchand (67) from Canada. … Former Oklahoma state player Maja Stark from Sweden finished with a 7-under 65 for a two-shot win at the Estrella Damm Ladies Open. It was her second win on the Ladies European Tour in three starts. … Ga Eun Song finished with a 3-under 68 and won with a birdie on the third playoff hole against Minjee Lee from Australia (69) in the Hana Financial Group Championship on the Korean LPGA
golf
Sam Burns holds the champion’s trophy after winning the Sanderson Farms Championship golf tournament in Jackson, Miss., On Sunday. (File photo by The Associated Press)