Dean Burmester grabbed the opportunity he was given on the final hole on Sunday and pulled off a play-off victory on the second extra hole in the LIV Golf Invitational-Miami at Trump National Doral Miami in Florida.
And, while Burmester bogeyed the final hole in regulation, Sergio Garcia gifted him another bite of the cherry when he, too, dropped a shot on the last hole. Garcia entered the day with a two-shot lead but was eventually caught by multiple players. At one point on back nine, five players – Burmester, Louis Oosthuizen, Garcia, Tyrell Hatton, and Matthew Wolff – shared the lead.
Burmester grabbed the solo lead with a birdie at the drivable 16th but bogeyed the difficult par-four 18th after an errant drive. Meanwhile, Garcia grabbed the lead with a 40-footer birdie putt at 17, but he three-putted the 18th to fall back into a tie and force the play-off.
After matching pars on the first play-off hole, Garcia found the water with his approach shot at the 18th while Burmester safely landed on the green for a two-putt par to win.
He took down one Masters champion in Garcia, and another Spaniard and the reigning holder of the green jacket, Jon Rahm, was in fourth place. One player Rahm won’t see next week is Burmester, who is in great form but not likely to feature in majors this year unless something dramatic changes in the stand-off between LIV Golf and the rest of the traditional golf world.
During the LIV Golf off season, Burmester won back-to-back events back home in South Africa – including the South African Open Championship – and now has his first LIV Golf victory as he continues to showcase his world-class talent. He finished in a share of third in the LIV Golf season opener at Mayakoba, Mexico.
“It’s special because coming over to LIV,” he said. “Obviously I was coming over to three friends and I was excited about that, but I also wanted to prove myself against a lot of the best players in the world, a lot of major champions. Now that I’ve done that a year and a half in, I’m super stoked and proud of myself and now we’re going to try to do it again.
“I mean, it’s certainly probably the best golf of my career. If I look at it that way, the amount of wins, the amount of top 10s, top fives that I’m producing is some really special stuff.
“I mean, I want to be in the field in the Masters, obviously. I feel like I’ve played some really great golf over the last five, six months. The two wins back home in South Africa before Christmas were special, two tournaments I’ve wanted to win for a long time, and to win the South African Open, which is the second oldest open in the world, is a privilege. I thought I held myself really well there, and to come here on a golf course like this that’s major worthy and to beat major champions, I’m happy to have done that. Do I want to be at Augusta? Yeah, I’ve never been there before, so yeah, I want to be there.”
Oosthuizen closed with a one-under 71 to finish in a share of seventh on seven-under, Branden Grace had a level-par 72 closer for a share of 32nd on two-over, and Charl Schwartzel was on four-over in a share of 37th after his three-over 75.
The all-South African Stinger GC team finished third behind Rahm’s Legion XIII and the Range Goats GC.
