Blustery Scotland Took Wind Out of Golfer Burns’ Sails : NCAA Division II Champion From CSUN Blown Away by British Amateur Conditions

Bob Burns, the NCAA Division II golf champion from Cal State Northridge, has played a lot of golf in Southern California in the past eight years. He has played in smog thick enough to choke a weasel. He has played in rain heavy enough to knock the feathers off a condor. He has played in coastal fog and scorching heat.

But he had never played in any wind. Oh, there had been breezy days. But not the kind of wind that makes whistling noises as it hits your teeth.

For that kind of wind, one must travel to Scotland. And so, Burns did. He qualified for the British Amateur championship this year and was treated to three days of Scottish wind on such courses as famed Muirfield near Edinburgh.

That was two weeks ago. Burns’ hair is just starting to lie back down.

“The first qualifying round the wind was up around 40 miles an hour,” Burns said. “You just don’t see that around here. They tend to play the game more along the ground than we do.”

Somehow, Burns, 22, of San Fernando, made the adjustment to the drastic conditions. He shot an opening-round 77 at Muirfield and came back the next day on the new course at Luffness with a 71. He made the cut by one stroke and qualified for match play at Muirfield but lost his opening match on the 21st hole to Frenchman Robert Eggo.

“It wasn’t a match I should have lost,” Burns said. “I missed a lot of putts that were very makeable, the kind of putts you need to win. I think the wind might have affected my putting more than anything else. It was so strong at times it would move the ball around on the green. And sometimes you’d get blown off the ball when you were standing over it. It was hard to keep my concentration on the greens in that kind of wind.”

Burns had qualified for the British Amateur on the basis of his official handicap through the past 12 months, along with having qualified for the U. S. Amateur a year ago. He missed the cut in the U. S. Amateur by two strokes.

The trip to Scotland came just two weeks after he had captured the NCAA Division II championship in Jupiter, Fla., in a powerful performance. He held a six-stroke lead over the field heading into the final round and eased his way to the title, winning by two strokes to become only the third golfer in CSUN history to claim the Division II title.

“I was not at all surprised that I won,” Burns said. “I felt really good going in and had been hitting the ball real well. I needed some putts to get it rolling, and I got some early. From then on my putting was hot and cold, but I was hitting the ball so well that it made up for the streaky putting.”

Burns, who will return to CSUN for his final year of eligibility, won the California junior college championship in 1987 while attending Los Angeles Mission College. He began playing at age 14 and was one of the top players at Kennedy High during his four years there. But it wasn’t until he began playing for Mission College that he began to realize that golf could be his ticket.

“Until then, it was just a game,” Burns said. “During JC, I started thinking it could be more than a game, that I could really make something out of this. I think about golf a little differently now than I did five years ago. But I always played to win, even at the recreational level, so that hasn’t changed.”

What has changed is Burns’ dedication to the game.

“Between my last year at Kennedy and my first year of college, I changed my attitude about golf,” he said. “That summer brought my biggest improvements. I worked on my game pretty hard that year, and I found out that if I did work hard I would get considerably better.”

That diligence has left Burns with plenty of confidence.

“I go into tournaments now thinking I will win them,” he said. “A few times it goes an extra step and I really believe I will win the tournament, no matter what it is. When I get that feeling, it’s just me out there. No one else. It’s a rare feeling, and I know that every time I’ve gotten that special feeling I’ve either won the tournament or been real close to winning it.”

Burns also believes that if he can maintain his dedication to the game, there will be room for him in a few years on the PGA tour.

“Golf is a funny game,” he said. “I’ve competed at many different levels, from high school golf to junior college golf to Division II college golf, and I have risen with each of them, winning at each level. The step to the PGA tour is obviously a much bigger one than any I’ve taken so far, but I believe I can make that step too.

“In five years I’d like to have everybody else on the PGA tour chasing me in a tournament.”