Dean Burmester nearly repeated his first-round eagle on 16 when he left a 31-footer just two feet short in the second round on Friday of the Open Championship at Royal Troon.
But with the wind picking up, Burmester was more than happy to settle for his four birdies and two bogeys in the second round as he set himself up for a weekend of chasing the year’s final major championship in the company of some very good links golf players.
Burmester signed for a two-under-par 69 in the second round, and, for a while as he finished – with more than half the field still out on the course or yet to tee off – he was in third place. And, with low scores at a premium as the day wears on, he could still be that high up the leaderboard when the halfway cut is made to the top 70 players and ties.
For a man who sends his tee-shots soaring into the sky, Burmester seems an unlikely contender at a windy Royal Troon with all its challenges. He certainly seems an unlikely player to have made two consecutive birdies on the shortest par-three in the Open, ‘The Postage Stamp’ eighth. But he did it again in his second round.
It’s taken Burmester a while to get to this point in a championship which is perhaps the most complete test of a player’s game than any other. “It took me a long time,” he admitted.
“It took me a good five years before I really started to be comfortable on links courses. I remember coming over for my first Scottish Open, Irish Open, things like that, back in the day, and I just had no idea. Just did not know how to… I didn’t know what to do around the greens. I didn’t know what to do into the greens, how to be able to hit a two-iron instead of trying to hit driver over here. Two-iron is going to go just as far as your driver into the wind kind of thing. Those things take time to learn, and I learnt all those and I’ve had some good weeks around links golf before, and I’m hoping to have two more good days here.”
Perhaps an indication of how he has progressed in that regard came when he gave an understated fist-pump when he made an 11-footer for par on the 12th. He realised that he had to give himself the space to deal with difficulty with equanimity instead of with self-criticism.
“My caddie and I, we just agreed this week that I’m not going to be too hard on myself,” he said. “I’m not going to get down on myself. If I hit bad shots, so what. Last week at Valderrama, that’s what I did, and it ended up costing me a chance of contending at a tournament.”
If he’s able to keep that kind of attitude working in conjunction with some good play, it’s going to be a good weekend for Burmester.
