Ryder Cup 2023: Sam Burns reveals he was going to the ‘bathroom, bathroom,’ when Zach Johnson invited him to Italy
Sam Burns will play alongside Scottie Scheffler to open the Ryder Cup on Friday morning in Italy
When Sam Burns finally got the call that he was joining the U.S. Ryder Cup team this fall, he quickly became very emotional.
That reaction isn’t the unusual part of the story. Considering Burns just barely missed the cut for the team in 2021, it was actually pretty expected.
It was where Burns was when he started crying that, well, Burns maybe didn’t need to reveal.
Burns told SiriusXM this week that, when he was waiting for captain Zach Johnson to call him earlier this month about his status on the team, nature called.
"I start crying because he told me I was invited"
Hear the hilarious story about how Sam Burns found out he had made the American Ryder Cup team.@Samburns66 I @RyderCupUSA I @rydercup pic.twitter.com/b31dB4EQgL— SiriusXM Ryder Cup Radio (@SiriusXMPGATOUR) September 27, 2023
“We get back to the house, and I had to go to the bathroom — like, bathroom bathroom,” Burns said. “So literally as soon as I sat down, Justin [Thomas] started texting me. He’s like, ‘Have you heard anything yet?’ And while I’m responding to him, Zach calls me.
“Of course I had to answer. I answered … I’m like mid-poop, and then I start crying because he just told me I’m invited and so much is going on. So, like, while I'm on the phone with him I’m trying to wipe, get out of there, also go tell [my wife] Caroline. So she comes around the corner about that time, she’s like asking me, I guess she heard me on speaker phone, and I told her. I gave her a thumbs up. It was really cool.”
Hey, it all worked out. But if Johnson didn’t know before where Burns was when he was talking to him that day, he does now.
Burns, 27, has won five times on the PGA Tour — most recently at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in March. He had six top-10 finishes on Tour last season, including a T9 finish at the Tour Championship, and he entered the Ryder cup ranked No. 20 in the Official World Golf Rankings.
Burns was one of Johnson’s six captain’s picks for the U.S. team, along with Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Thomas and Brooks Koepka. The Ryder Cup will kick off on Friday morning from the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club outside of Rome with foursome matches. Burns is set to play alongside Scottie Scheffler in the first group, and they’ll take on Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton.
