Hopefully Sam Burns will have a better week at the Country Club of Jackson than he did last week at the Presidents Cup matches.
Burns returns to Mississippi to defend his title this week at the Sanderson Farms Championship — the event with the really, really cool Rooster trophy.
It’s no ordinary trophy. This one is a very expensive bronze creation — a not to Sanderson Farms’ chicken business. Sanderson CEO wanted something special and voila — “Reveille” was created by noted California artist/sculptor Malcolm DeMille.
The process of creating the first Reveille took three to four months of work by Demille. The model is actually made up of six pieces: six different molds that are cast into bronze, polished, ground, and then welded together. Chemicals are applied to create the colors, which he said is a permanent change that takes just seconds to discolor bronze that has been heated by a torch.
When he got to the finished Reveille product, DeMille said he was most proud of the “attitude” it displayed. “Obviously a rooster is kind of cocky, so I had a little fun with that,” the veteran sculptor said, smiling. “It’s got a bit of a cocky attitude. It’s kind of looking you in your face with a ‘Yeah!? What do you want?’ kinda attitude. I like that.”
There’s what DeMille calls a perpetual trophy, the original creation that stays with the championship, and then the slightly smaller individual champions trophies that go home with the winner each year. DeMille would not say exactly how much his creations cost, but that the perpetual trophies run from “$7,000 to $8,000 on the very low side, and they can go up to $25,000 to $30,000.” The annual champions trophies that are made “might run $5,000 to $10,000 each.”
Last year Burns shot 22-under to walk off with his replica of “Reveille” (great name for a rooster!). He beat Cam Young and Nick Watney by a shot. Andrew Landry was two shots back at 20-under.
So this is one week where you better go low if you want to contend come Sunday.
Burns is the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 12. Joining him from the Presidents Cup matches are International team members Sebastian Munoz and Christiaan Bezuidenhout. Although the heavy under-dog International team lost to the U.S., Munoz got a nice feather in his cap with a 2-and-1 win over world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in the Sunday singles matches. Bezuidenhout also took a Sunday singles win. He beat dead-weight Kevin Kisner, 2-and-1.
