{"id":765812,"date":"2026-07-16T07:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/765812\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:24:16","slug":"how-an-early-arrival-changed-sam-burns-plans-for-the-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/765812\/","title":{"rendered":"How an early arrival changed Sam Burns’ plans for The Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many were surprised to see Sam Burns show up at Royal Birkdale this week. After all, he didn\u2019t plan to play this year\u2019s Open Championship<\/a> \u2014 and for good reason.<\/p>\n

Burns and his wife Caroline have been awaiting the arrival of their second child. The due date? Tuesday, July 14 \u2014 just two days before the opening round of the final major of the year.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Burns planned to stay home and not make the trip across the pond this year. Even after a runner-up at last month\u2019s U.S. Open<\/a> \u2014 a near-upset of eventual winner Wyndham Clark \u2014 and a string of four straight top 20s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was expecting to be at home,\u201d Burns told the PGA Tour<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

But the baby had other plans.<\/p>\n

Sam, Caroline and newly-minted big brother Bear welcomed a baby girl, Belle, on July 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still wasn\u2019t sure if I could get there mentally,\u201d Burns told the Tour\u2019s website. \u201cIt\u2019s just a weird dynamic of having a new baby, and you want to be there for them and your family. I think it was ultimately my decision of, could I get there from a mental standpoint of having to leave?\u201d<\/p>\n

If it was anything other than a major, Burns would probably still be at home in full dad mode, but his wife encouraged him to make the trip. The rest of the family, including proud grandparents, stayed back in Louisiana to support her.<\/p>\n

After a few days off the course to celebrate Belle\u2019s arrival, Burns is ready to see if he can turn a hot streak into his first major title. He\u2019s going off at +4500 odds to win<\/a> and playing in a grouping with Chris Gotterup and Adam Scott <\/a>that tees off at 9:42 a.m. ET (in the afternoon locally) on Thursday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at tee times and groupings for the opening round of the 154th Open Championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many were surprised to see Sam Burns show up at Royal Birkdale this week. After all, he didn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-765812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}