LSU Gold

Burns Named PING First-Team All-American

by Will Stafford (@WillStaffordLSU)
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Burns Named PING First-Team All-American

BATON ROUGE – Just one day after helping lead LSU to a top-10 team finish at the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships, sophomore Sam Burns was announced by the Golf Coaches Association among 10 PING First-Team All-Americans on Tuesday while adding to his resume as a National Player of the Year candidate.

Burns selection as a PING First-Team All-American comes just five days after he was announced last Thursday as a finalist for the NCAA Division I Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award.

His selection Tuesday marks the ninth-straight season since 2009 in which at least one LSU Tiger has been chosen as an All-American as Burns becomes the first to pick up first-team status since former NCAA Champion and current PGA TOUR professional John Peterson in 2011. Burns is LSU’s 11th First-Team All-American selection in the program’s storied history.

On the eve of the 2017 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships, LSU’s sophomore All-American Sam Burns was named by the Golf Coaches Association of America among the five finalists for the this year’s NCAA Division I Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award presented by Barbasol.

Oregon’s Wyndham Clark, Vanderbilt’s Patrick Martin, Stanford’s Maverick McNealy and Wake Forest’s Will Zalatoris joined Burns as finalists for the award named in honor of one of the legends of the game.

The winner will be announced Thursday afternoon immediately following the NCAA Championship with Nicklaus himself presenting the award in a special ceremony at Muirfield Village Golf Club with the final round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide.

Burns arrived at Rich Harvest Farms Golf Club for the 2017 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships as the No. 1-ranked player in college golf in the latest Golfstat individual rankings. He helped lead the Tigers to their first ever regional title on May 17 as medalist of the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional where he edged Oregon’s No. 2-ranked Wyndham Clark by a single shot for his fourth tournament title of the season.

Also the champion of the David Toms Intercollegiate, Sun Bowl Western Refining College All-America Golf Classic and Louisiana Classics this season, Burns was recently honored by the head coaches in the Southeastern Conference as the 2017 SEC Player of the Year and a First-Team All-SEC performer for his efforts.

Burns, who was recently named to Team USA’s Arnold Palmer Cup squad this summer, saw his streak of 14-straight top-10 individual finishes this season snapped at the NCAA Championships while tying for 32nd place in his final collegiate tournament as an LSU Tiger. He announced after Monday’s final round of stroke play his decision to turn professional following the Walker Cup in August. As a sophomore, Burns broke the school’s single-season scoring record with a stroke average of 70.05 while finishing with four wins and 14 top-10 finishes.

2017 Division I PING First-Team All-Americans
Sam Burns, LSU
Wyndham Clark, Oregon
Maverick McNealy, Stanford
Dylan Meyer, Illinois
Collin Morikawa, California
John Oda, UNLV
Jimmy Stanger, Virginia
Braden Thornberry, Ole Miss
Will Zalatoris, Wake Forest