How PGA Tour winner Sam Burns negotiated a putting green in his childhood backyard

Sam burns reads a putt

Sam Burns ranked third in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting at the Valspar.

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It took 76 career PGA Tour starts for Sam Burns to win his first-ever PGA Tour event. Burns, still just 24, took down Keegan Bradley on Sunday at the Valspar Championship.

Burns rode a hot putter all week, a flatstick that might not be quite as good now if it wasn’t for some smart negotiating when he was in middle school. It was around that time when he decided to really invest in golf, and not football. And at the time, his mother wasn’t thrilled. After all, Burns’ dad and brother both played football collegiately, but when Sam was in 8th grade he realized where his heart was. He was going to quit football and focus on golf.

Although he wasn’t able to quit right then. His mother, Beth, got one more football season out of him. How? She promised a backyard putting green — but not just any makeshift green. “What kind of a green?” Todd Burns, Sam’s father, asked.

“Like the Toms have; he has a nice putting green,” said Beth, in a story told to Nola.com in a 2018 profile on Sam.

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“My gosh, those things are expensive,” Todd said. “David Toms is a PGA player.”

“You have to do it, because I told Sam you would,” Beth said.

On Sunday night, fresh off his three-stroke win, Sam Burns relived that story again.

“[My mom] was just devastated because that was all she ever knew was Friday night watching football,” he said. “And I said, Well, mom, how about if I played one more year, we can have a little putting green in the backyard. That way I can still practice after football practice. She goes, ‘Okay.'”

It’s paid off. Burns ranks 22nd on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting and was third in that category at the Valspar, gaining more than nine strokes on the field. He’s also now $1.242 million richer, has a PGA Tour card locked up through the 2022-23 season and is going to this year’s 2021 PGA Championship. A worthy backyard investment, for sure.

Josh Berhow

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of the sport’s most-read news and service websites. He spends most of his days writing, editing, planning and wondering if he’ll ever break 80. Before joining GOLF.com in 2015, he worked at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., he resides in the Twin Cities with his wife and two kids. You can reach him at joshua_berhow@golf.com.