Q. What a fantastic round today. Can you talk a little bit about it?
DEAN BURMESTER: I obviously played solid, bogey-free. To be honest, I think I hit every green in regulation, I might be wrong, so it was pretty stress free. I left a few out there, but I'm very happy with a few I made. I got lucky here and there, but that's just golf.
More than anything else, the work that I've been putting in seems to be paying off. So I've just got to keep at it.
Q. The drive on the 18th that obviously set you up for that birdie is pretty impressive.
DEAN BURMESTER: Yeah, I hit one yesterday. That's kind of how I knew I could get there and make sure I was comfortable being able to roll into that left pin. You kind of want to keep it up to the middle of the green. I went from there and hit it pretty hard, probably as hard as I've ever hit a tee shot.
Yeah, it was nice. A week ago Friday I participated in a long drive thing in South Africa. I learned a few things from the long drive champion South Africa. So it was quite cool to kind of put that to good use.
Q. What did you learn?
DEAN BURMESTER: More about like hip mobility and rotation and how he creates his speed without feeling like you have to hit it that hard. It was quite interesting to see the dynamic and the way that they do it. I'm sure Bryson knows all about this stuff because he did it. For me to learn something like that was cool.
Q. How did you do in the long drive competition?
DEAN BURMESTER: I finished second behind him. Yeah, it was fun. It was just a local thing, but it was really cool. It was great to experience that. They had a senior division and a kids division. It was really cool.
Q. This week you started off like a little bit slower. How have you built into such good form this week?
DEAN BURMESTER: I think I do feel like, when I've been at home, I've been playing really well. Then when I get away to tournaments, I think I let frustration and things creep in. That's basically what happened in round 1.
Yesterday I told myself I wasn't going to let that happen. Then obviously I was 6-under through nine holes, and that kind of set me up to go stress free from there. Then when you get into these kinds of positions, it's just about putting your foot on the gas and keeping at it.
That's basically my attitude today was just about give myself birdie chances, be as consistent as possible. That's what I'm looking for is consistency. I was able to do that, so I'm very proud of that.
Q. Going into tomorrow at the top of the leaderboard, how are you going to address that?
DEAN BURMESTER: It's exciting. I see Ballester up there, Caleb Surratt up there, two young, exciting kids that are probably still learning the ropes a little bit in professional golf. I've been able to witness Ballester firsthand last year in Chicago, and I've played with Caleb a few times. I know how good they are and how sharp I'll have to be.
It should pose to be a fun round of golf. I'm sure we'll have a lot of laughs and get out there, and may the best man win obviously.
Q. The course has been getting a lot of positive feedback. Is that your experience as well?
DEAN BURMESTER: Yeah, I think today especially, it started to firm up for the first time, which was exciting to see. There were some shots, the second shot into 16, I had 105 yards in the middle of the fairway, and I couldn't stop it. So that's how firm it's getting, and that's the fun part.
I think the more that the golf course ages and grows into itself, the better it's going to get. But the greens were all absolutely fantastic. I think that's why you're seeing such great scoring.
I think, with that in mind, coming again in February is going to be exciting. If we get under the lights and it's in this great condition, it's going to be awesome.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports