Sam Burns’ Record-Setting Open Championship Bid Unravels as Si Woo Kim Seizes the Lead at Royal Birkdale

Sam Burns’ bid for a first career major title turned chaotic in a hurry on Sunday at Royal Birkdale. The 29-year-old carried a two-shot lead into the final round of The Open Championship at 10-under par, only to bogey three straight holes — the 4th, 5th and 6th — dropping to 8-under and surrendering the lead to Si Woo Kim, who birdied his way to 10-under. With Cameron Young and Ryan Fox lurking at 9-under and Tommy Fleetwood, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau all within striking distance, the final round has turned into one of the most crowded major championship leaderboards in recent memory.

Burns entered the day riding one of the hottest stretches of his career. His opening 73 gave little indication of what followed: a third-round 65 paired with a Saturday 62 gave him a 36-hole scoring stretch of 127 through the midpoint of the tournament, a record-setting number for a major championship. The LSU product has five PGA Tour victories to his name, including a playoff win over Scottie Scheffler at the 2022 Charles Schwab Challenge, but a major title has eluded him. His best prior finish came just last month, a runner-up showing at the U.S. Open, and he arrived at Royal Birkdale looking to finally cross the threshold from contender to champion.

A Record-Setting Run Unravels on the Back Nine of the Front

Burns’ third-round 62 was part of a remarkable weekend stretch at Royal Birkdale, with Lucas Herbert matching the same score a day earlier and Ryan Fox becoming just the seventh player in major championship history to card a 62 in the third round. That kind of scoring made Sunday’s collapse all the more jarring. After opening with a par on the first hole, Burns bogeyed the par-3 4th, then the par-4 5th, then the 6th, bleeding three shots in the span of three holes and handing the initiative to a leaderboard stacked with major winners and contenders. Si Woo Kim capitalized immediately, stringing together back-to-back birdies to move to 10-under and taking the outright lead for the first time all week.

The margin for error at the top has all but disappeared. Cameron Young and Ryan Fox are tied at 9-under, a single shot back, while Tommy Fleetwood and Scottie Scheffler sit within two shots of the lead — both former major champions in Fleetwood’s Ryder Cup pedigree and Scheffler’s résumé of Masters and PGA Championship titles. Bryson DeChambeau, the reigning U.S. Open champion, remains part of the chasing pack as well, giving the back nine at Royal Birkdale a murderers’ row of finishers with something to play for. Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, started the day eight shots back, a gap that likely puts a first Open title on home soil out of reach barring a historic final-round surge.

What’s at Stake for Burns and the Field

For Burns, Sunday represents the clearest opportunity yet to convert consistent major championship contention into a trophy. His T-9 finish at the 2024 U.S. Open, T-19 at last year’s PGA Championship, and runner-up finish at this year’s U.S. Open all point to a player who has learned to compete deep into major weekends — the missing piece has been closing it out. A win at Royal Birkdale would be his first major and easily the signature victory of his career, elevating him instantly into the sport’s upper tier. A collapse, by contrast, would mark a second consecutive major where Burns held a lead or contended deep into Sunday only to watch someone else lift the trophy.

The final round is far from finished, and with a half-dozen players inside two shots of the lead, Royal Birkdale is shaping up to produce a finish that could go any number of directions. Fans tracking the tournament — and anyone weighing a same-day wager on the outcome — will find continuously updated odds and markets on golf’s final major of the season through the DraftKings Promo Code page as the leaderboard shifts hole by hole. Those trying to weigh the value in a shifting live market before placing anything can also run the numbers through the Expected Value (EV) Calculator to see how quickly the odds are moving as names change atop the board.

History suggests chaos at the top of a major leaderboard rarely stays settled for long. Burns still has plenty of holes to erase his three-bogey stretch, and a player capable of a 62 on Saturday clearly has the game to go low again when it matters most. Si Woo Kim, for his part, has quietly built one of the more efficient weeks in the field, avoiding the type of big number that has derailed others at Royal Birkdale’s demanding closing stretch. Cameron Young and Ryan Fox both arrive with recent major experience of their own, having each finished inside the top five at previous Open Championships, while Fleetwood’s record of near-misses in home Opens adds another layer of drama should he find his way back to the top.

Whoever survives the back nine at Royal Birkdale will have earned it; few majors in recent memory have set up this many players with a real chance to win on the closing holes. For Burns specifically, the next few hours will determine whether Sunday becomes the validation of a career-best 36-hole stretch or another chapter in a growing list of major near-misses for one of the PGA Tour’s most consistent front-runners.