BATON ROUGE – On the strength of a fall season in which he picked up two tournament titles and did not finish outside the Top 10 in any of his six starts, LSU All-American Sam Burns cracked the Top 5 of the initial Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking released by the Golf Coaches Association of America as the No. 3-ranked American.
The top-six golfers in the final Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking in the spring from both the United States and Europe will be among the individuals selected to compete in next summer’s Arnold Palmer Cup being held at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Georgia from June 9-11 following the NCAA Championships.
The Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking utilizes Golfstat’s NCAA Player Ranking as its base for ranking the Top 25 Americans and Top 25 Europeans while awarding bonus points for wins and high finishes and negative points for poor finishes in amateur events. The ranking also uses a strength of schedule component as part of its biweekly calculations during the spring.
Burns is currently the nation’s No. 3-ranked player in college golf regardless of nationality in the latest Golfstat individual power rankings released Nov. 15 following the end of the collegiate fall season.
Burns is looking to become the fourth LSU Tiger in five years to compete on the international stage at the Arnold Palmer Cup after former All-American Ben Taylor of Leatherhead, Surrey, England, teed it up for Europe during the event in 2013 before All-Americans Stewart Jolly and Zach Wright represented the United States in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
Honored as a PING Honorable Mention All-American by the GCAA following his freshman season last spring, Burns has performed like a Haskins Award candidate throughout his sophomore season this fall while taking home individual titles at the David Toms Intercollegiate and Sun Bowl Western Refining College All-America Golf Classic among his six top-10 finishes in six collegiate starts.
Burns most recently became the first LSU golfer in history to win the Sun Bowl Western Refining College All-America Golf Classic by three shots when he fired a 54-hole score of 12-under par 201 in the event held Nov. 12-13 at El Paso Country Club. He also lit up Ka’anapali Golf Club in Lahaina, Maui, with a career-low tournament score of 13-under 200 for second place in LSU’s fall finale at the Ka’anapali Collegiate Classic on Nov. 6.
The Shreveport native is in the midst of a historic season with the Tigers with a team-leading scoring average of 69.00 strokes per round through his six tournament appearances to this point. He is now a cumulative 45-under par in those six starts with 17 of his 18 collegiate rounds at par or better.
Burns’ other finishes include a tie for sixth place at the Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic, eighth place at the Maui Jim Intercollegiate and a tie for ninth place at The Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Championship.
Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking (Nov. 16)
United States
Player, School, Percentage
1. Wyndham Clark, Oregon, 1.0000
2. Jimmy Stanger, Virginia, 0.9980
3. Sam Burns, LSU, 0.9970
4. Will Long, Auburn, 0.9970
5. Maverick McNealy, Stanford, 0.9965
6. Sean Crocker, Southern California, 0.9955
7. Greyson Sigg, Georgia, 0.9941
8. Dylan Meyer, Illinois, 0.9933
9. Doug Ghim, Texas, 0.9931
10. Chandler Phillips, Texas A&M, 0.9926
11. Gavin Hall, Texas, 0.9920
12. Will Zalatoris, Wake Forest, 0.9916
13. Wyatt Larkin, Kennesaw State, 0.9906
14. Braden Thornberry, Ole Miss, 0.9902
15. Patrick Martin, Vanderbilt, 0.9891
16. Spencer Ralston, Georgia, 0.9886
17. Sam Stevens, Oklahoma State, 0.9871
18. Cameron Young, Wake Forest, 0.9861
19. Dylan Wu, Northwestern, 0.9856
20. Brandon Wu, Stanford, 0.9856
21. Blaine Hale, Oklahoma, 0.9827
22. Collin Morikawa, California, 0.9822
23. Zach Bauchou, Oklahoma State, 0.9776
24. Franklin Huang, Stanford, 0.9767
25. Scott Stevens, South Carolina, 0.9747
Europe
Player, School, Country, Percentage
1. Matthias Schwab, Vanderbilt, Austria, 0.9950
2. Viktor Hovland, Oklahoma State, Norway, 0.9727
3. Mans Berglund, Lamar, Sweden, 0.9624
4. Fredrik Nilehn, Texas Tech, Sweden, 0.9588
5. Euan Walker, Missouri, Scotland, 0.9563
6. Edoardo Lipparelli, Illinois, Italy, 0.9558
7. Harry Ellis, Florida State, England, 0.9538
8. David Wicks, Jacksonville, England, 0.9529
9. Hannes Ronneblad, Texas Tech, Sweden, 0.9484
10. Yannik Paul, Colorado, Germany, 0.9460
11. Ilari Saulo, Middle Tennessee State, Finland, 0.9441
12. Linus Lilliedahl, Missouri, Sweden, 0.9370
13. Frederik Dreier, UTEP, Denmark, 0.9356
14. Kristoffer Ventura, Oklahoma State, Norway, 0.9280
15. Sam Horsfield, Florida, England, 0.9240
16. Jeremy Gandon, Kansas State, France, 0.9200
17. Gisli Sveinbergsson, Kent State, Iceland, 0.9075
18. Andreas Sorenson, UTEP, Denmark, 0.9063
19. Simon Zach, Louisville, Czech Republic, 0.9025
20. Federico Zucchetti, Texas Tech, Italy, 0.9020
21. Paul McBride, Wake Forest, Ireland, 0.9001
22. Erik Lindwall, Eastern Kentucky, Sweden, 0.9001
23. Peter Staalbo, South Alabama, Denmark, 0.8962
24. Elliott Fullalove, Jacksonville, England, 0.8927
25. Pablo Rodriguez-Tabernero Torres, Kennesaw State, Spain, 0.8913