Sam Burns is figuring out that he’s a strong player and he was the best man in the Byron Nelson field by far on Friday. He birdied 10 of the 18 holes on his way to an eye-popping 10-under par 62 that got him to a whopping 17-under par, lowest 36-hole score on the PGA Tour for 2021.
Burns got on a back nine roll that saw him birdie six of his last eight holes and as low as he went, he goes into Saturday’s moving day just two shots in front of Alex Noren.
Noren’s 64 took him to 15-under while K.H. Lee’s 65 put him solo third at minus 14. Doc Redman (67) was alone at 13-under with day-one co-leader J.J. Spaun sitting by himself at 12-under par.
Jordan Spieth cooled off considerably from his opening 63 and settled for a two-under par 70 that put him in a group of six players at 11-under par.
Burns picked up his first PGA Tour win last month at The Valspar and, in the process, found out he did not have to play “perfect” to win on the PGA Tour, as he described after that win.
His 62 was his lowest career round on tour. Burns now has a tour-best five 36-hole leads this season. He is trying to become the first to get his first two PGA Tour victories in consecutive starts since Camilo Villegas in 2008.
“The biggest thing for me is just seeing the hard work that we put in it, start seeing results from that,” Burns said. “A lot of times you don’t know how long the results are going to take. It’s cool to see some feedback from the progress we’ve made back home and seeing it in tournament play as well.”
The scoring was so low that the six-under par cutline was the lowest in the tournament’s history.
Brooks Koepka looked no where near ready for the PGA as he shot rounds of 71-70 and didn’t come close to playing the weekend. Rickie Fowler (67-72) went home early as did Sergio Garcia (65-75) and Jason Day (70-69).
Bryson DeChambeau (69-68) barely made it as did Jon Ram (68-69) — both were seven-under. Masters champ Hideki Matsuyama found enough good form to make the cut on the number.
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