BATON ROUGE – LSU’s sophomore All-American Sam Burns was recently honored by the Southern Golf Association as the organization’s Amateur of the Month for November on the strength of his victory at the 2016 Sun Bowl Western Refining College All-America Golf Classic where he won by three shots at El Paso Country Club.
Burns made history as the first LSU Tiger to win the event in its 42 years of existence as he joined such past champions as Davis Love III (1984), David Duval (1991), Tiger Woods (1995) and Matt Kuchar (1999).
Burns trailed Oklahoma State’s Kristoffer Ventura by one stroke at 7-under par at the start of play in the final round, and both were off to fast starts with matching birdies at the par-four first hole.
But Burns turned the tables and took the lead for the first time with back-to-back birdies at the par-four fifth and sixth holes to drop to 3-under par for his round and 10-under par for the tournament through the turn. He moved to 7-under par for the day with birdies at the par-three 10th and par-three 12th holes before making an eagle 3 at the par-five 13th hole.
Despite carding two bogeys at Nos. 15 and 17, Burns closed out a three-shot victory over USC’s Justin Suh with a final-round 66 for a 54-hole score of 12-under par 201 for the weekend. Suh finished runner-up to Burns with a final score of 9-under par 204, while Ventura dropped to third place on the final leaderboard with a final score of 8-under par 205 for the championship.
Burns’ victory at the Sun Bowl Western Refining College All-America Golf Classic followed an appearance at the Ka’anapali Collegiate Classic in Lahaina, Maui, where he finished runner-up in the final collegiate event for the fall season with a career-low tournament score of 13-under par 200. He capped his appearance in Hawaii with a career-low 9-under 62 in the final round at Ka’anapali Golf Club.
A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Burns is in the midst of a historic sophomore season at LSU with a team-leading scoring average of 69.00 strokes per round through his six tournament appearances. He is a cumulative 45-under par in those six starts with 17 of his 18 collegiate rounds at par or better.