THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome the winning team of LIV Golf Chicago, Stinger GC, and the individual champion Dean Burmester, double victory here in Chicago for Stinger. Well done, guys.
Dean, congratulations on the win. Can you take us through your day going head-to-head with Josele and Jon and that winning moment during the playoff on 18?
DEAN BURMESTER: Yeah, obviously had the dream start, didn't I, 3-over through 3. I'm not going to lie, I tend to get down on myself, and in that moment, I thought, I've got a lot more to fight for than just the golf tournament. For me, it was about hanging around. I made a great up-and-down on 4 and then a great birdie on 5 and that was kind of me going again.
I had loads of chances that I didn't make. Left a lot of putts short.
But yeah, both boys birdieing the 18th, I kind of knew I had to make my putt on 18 to win it in regulation and then just lagged it up there.
But yeah, both of them made their putts, and then actually got kind of lucky, actually, with my team shot there stopping in the rough. Kind of gave me a fuller shot in, and I got the perfect right bounce and it went to six and a half feet or wherever it was and read it right to left and it went right to left and then went right and lipped in. I was halfway through a fist pump and then had to pause and have a second go at it.
Yeah, the moment after the emotion of trying to win a golf tournament, there's nothing sweeter than that. Then to have these boys, these two boys on the ends to do it right behind me and all three of us to birdie the playoff hole is special.
Q. With this win, you've moved up to fourth in the individual standings, now just 23 points behind Bryson heading into Indianapolis. What does it mean to you to be in that position with just one event to go for the season?
DEAN BURMESTER: Yeah, I had a great start to the year and then kind of had a dip in the middle. For me it's awesome to have a chance to crack that top 3 going into next week. It's a goal of mine to try and improve every year, and I had a good season last year, and I've improved on it this year now after this. I'm really happy and I'm excited to see if I can chase him down, and I know the big guns will be bringing their top stuff.
I don't know what's happened right at the top, but I know I've got no chance at that, so I'm going to try and finish as high up as I can.
Q. Louis, how proud are you of Dean's performance this week and the team's performance as well to get the double here in Chicago? It's your first team win since Tulsa in 2023, which is 31 events ago.
LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Yeah, we just heard that stat. I mean, it's a long time ago. I always felt like we played a lot better than a lot of weeks, but then that last day someone just pipped us.
But yeah, it was nice to go into today. I thought there was going to be that extra pressure on Dean, obviously, with Jon just right behind him, and I saw his start and sort of buckled down a bit to see if I can get something done because the other two days wasn't very good.
But yeah, the boys played well the whole week, and at the end there, for him to get that win and then for Charl and Branden to hit those two shots into 18 was very special, and it was very relieving for me to watch.
Q. Feels like Stinger came into Chicago on a bit of a high. You had the third-place finish in the UK and we also announced that LIV Golf will be going to South Africa next year. Can you just describe what the reception has been like at home, and has that given you guys a bit of an extra boost?
LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Yeah, definitely. I think we've sold 31,000 tickets so far already. I think it was a record, 10,000 tickets in the first 24 hours.
I think our country is a massive sporting country, and they will love this field to watch it there in Steyn City. We're all very excited.
I think we're definitely feeding a little bit off that, knowing that we're going there and going to play in front of our people. We're very excited.
Q. Branden, you've been battling a wrist injury but you've really shown some strong form, fourth in Andalucía, fifth this week. How satisfying is it for you to be seeing that hard work come to fruition and competing again at the highest level?
BRANDEN GRACE: Yeah, it's been a tough year and a half. Obviously not easy coming back -- well, coming off of an injury like that, not that it's off of it, I'm still going on with it, but I think the off-season is going to be needed, so that's good. But it's nice to be playing some good golf and doing what we're doing best.
I know we're four great friends. We get along on and off the golf course. We had a hell of a week here. We stayed in a house.
This is the type of golf that I know that the four of us can play. We should be contending week in and week out to win these tournaments.
I know it's been a while, but it's been a long time coming.
Q. Moving on to that team playoff, you and Charl coming in clutch over two birdies to get the job done, can you take us through that playoff and what it means to you to get it done like that?
BRANDEN GRACE: Yeah, you can't ever relax in those moments. I told Charl afterwards, it's like, you knew one of them were going to make one of those putts. Although we're six foot and a one-foot, you knew one of them were going to make it and the pressure was going to be back on yourself, and there you go.
It was just great to get up there, seeing Burmy getting over the line in the individual and giving us that extra bit of motivation to get it done, and obviously the captain putting his faith in us to get it done as well. So that was great.
Obviously just very relieved to pull it off at the end of the day.
Q. Charl, your thoughts on being part of that playoff and being able to get the win here this week for Stinger.
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Yeah, it was great. Again, it was just nice watching Dean in front of us. You can see all the hard work that he's put in, and like I said, he started off well this season and really middle of the season struggled.
You can see when you go through these tough times, it's not easy. So happy for him when he made that putt. That was great. That really sort of freed me and Branden up from a happiness point of view for the team.
We both hit great shots off the tee and second shots in there. Set ourselves up for those two birdies, and it was nice to get it done.
Q. Dean, obviously you had a very emotional reaction when you sank the putt, but afterwards you were kind of off to the side, and I think you were looking at your phone and you seemed to be very emotional. What was going through your mind, and why was this one really special it seemed like?
DEAN BURMESTER: Honestly, there's been enough going on in my life off the golf course and away from golf. I'm not going to comment further on that. But the stuff that I've had to go through and pull through is a lot more difficult than a lot of golf tournaments that you'll play, but it certainly affected me out there playing golf.
These guys know I can get pretty hot-headed, more than most, and it was certainly showing itself towards the middle of the season. I think I had high expectations to do well because I had a good start, and obviously that didn't go into fruition. I kind of just eased off and fell into the background a little bit.
Then JCB was a big turning point for me. Kind of felt in Virginia -- my wife did something amazing, finished a 90-kilometer, which is like a 60-mile marathon, in nine and a half hours, and for my wife to be able to go through what she's put her body through and achieve her goal like that was special, and that kind of put things into perspective for me and what I had in my mind and what was really going on off the golf course and on the golf course.
For her to achieve that really kind of changed my life, and that drove me to want to do the same for them, for her and my kids. That's what today was about, because today was not easy. It's probably the worst I've played in a little -- certainly in the beginning, in a while, but then to just hang on and have Jason back me like that was great. We've been through a lot. It was really emotional, you're right.
Q. What was that lie like on the second shot in the playoff?
DEAN BURMESTER: The grass was growing with me, so that helped a lot. But it was certainly down there. This rough is no joke. They certainly grow it up. It kind of flattens on a lot of the guys around the green, so you can get anything around the green.
But if you miss a fairway -- I missed the fairway on 2 today just a couple yards left and I was struggling to get that on the green with a gap wedge in my hand. That one, luckily it was a lob wedge, a 60-degree. There was a bit of luck in it, but I hit the best shot I could and it pitched exactly where I wanted. It could have turned out different.
Q. How difficult was it, or maybe it wasn't that difficult, to not pick yourself for the playoff?
LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: It was very easy. Me and Dean actually said after Australia, okay, that was our chance, and we had a good opportunity on the first hole and we both missed our putts. So the next one is Charl and Branden.
I played with them, and I knew it was going to come down to a putt on the last hole. I knew they were reading the greens pretty good. They were rolling it very good. They actually took the fun part out of it by hitting two unbelievable shots in there. Branden still had a tricky little six-footer, but I was a bit all over the place this week.
Yeah, I played better today, but I know Branden is playing very well, and I know what kind of player Charl is. It was actually in the end a very easy decision.
Dean could have just saved us all by making the putt on the regulation, and it would have been a lot easier.
Q. You guys were talking about the house that you shared this week. Dean told us yesterday that the last time you did that was when you won in Tulsa. My question is why don't you do that more often?
LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: I think we're already looking at houses next week. Yeah, I don't know. It's just the way it worked. I don't know. No idea.
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: It's tough when we've got the families. When the families travel, we'd need a 12-bedroom house for everybody.
LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: This is one of the few weeks where it was just the four of us. I had my daughter with me this week, but most weeks we've got some family coming on the weekends, and then you need to get a really big house. It gets really crowded.
Q. What's it like in that house? Who's the braai master? And does that help when you're all together?
BRANDEN GRACE: Louis cleans up pretty good. He's in charge of packing the dishwasher.
LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: It felt like that, looking after three kids this week.
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: I'm not allowed to braai. That's what I've been told.
BRANDEN GRACE: He is the best eater, but no, we all had our turns. But it was great. It's just nice to have a bit of banter and we had the fire on every night and cooking and that sort of stuff, so it's been great. Just sitting at the table, we were watching rugby World Cup videos a couple nights ago, some Afrikaans music going, this sort of thing, but it's just nice to have the four of us together.
Q. Charl, do you want to weigh in on the house?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: I actually didn't do much this week. These guys looked after me. Louis cooked well, Branden cooked, Dean --
DEAN BURMESTER: We made each other coffee.
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Yeah, we were the coffee guys. It was a very easy week for me, actually.
Q. Dean, yesterday you were talking about, you were joking that you would have to learn Spanish because you were playing with Rahm and Josele. You beat Sergio in a playoff, obviously, so you've beaten three Spaniards in the two Playoffs. Maybe they need to learn Afrikaans?
DEAN BURMESTER: I mean, I can teach them a few words they need to know if you want. But I suppose that's just coincidence more than anything else. But honestly, today to go head-to-head with Rahm, I've been head-to-head with him twice before and kind of lost out both times. I think Niemann came out on top one time in Mexico and actually a long time ago when he was just getting out of college, played against him in Dubai second to last group where he won.
So yeah, I know what it's like to be on the other end of that. But yeah, two phenomenal players. That kid Ballester has got some game. That I will tell you. He's got some serious game. He showed some nuts today. I mean, his shot on 17 was no joke, straight at the flag. It looked like it was a two all day. It would have been a one. Unfortunately he missed that putt.
Then to have that shot in on 18 under that kind of pressure, you don't see kids that do that very often. For me to come out on top was awesome, so Afrikaans won this time, but we'll see what happens next time.
Q. Branden, can you talk a little bit about the highs and lows of golf? Last month you were worried about relegation and all that stuff and now you finish in the top 5 two of the last three events and now you're holding the team trophy. How are the highs and lows and how do you deal with that?
BRANDEN GRACE: Listen, it comes in life, it's not just in sport. I think as an athlete, you just keep believing and keep grinding and keep thinking the big thing is just around the corner.
I think in golf, it's making one putt, making one good swing, and you get a feeling, and then you go.
But for me, I felt that the last couple of months since Mexico I've felt that I've been swinging better. I've been playing better golf.
The guys have always been behind me, but it's nice knowing that -- Charl has mentioned a few times, you can see the ball flight is back and all these sort of things, and all these things help you believe in yourself more. Then you just keep going, and one good week at the end of this year was amazing.
You kind of go to the mindset that you know it's tough so you only have to beat half the guys that's out there because half of them don't want to be there anyway because it's so hard, and then obviously played well, and coming out to these weeks obviously riding the form a little bit.
Obviously it's great to have gone through all those things. It's tough when you have to. But I know it makes us stronger at the end of the day.
It feels a lot nicer knowing what I'm capable of doing and what I've achieved in this little stretch so far.
Q. Dean, in the context of this round specifically, you don't see a lot of times where a player will bogey their first three holes and go on to win. How did you fight through that, and what was your mindset after that third bogey?
DEAN BURMESTER: Honestly, on the first, I thought I hit a beautiful second shot in there and then three-putted. Then second hole, kind of two bad lies in a row and made bogey. Then the third hole, honestly, hit the wrong third shot, hit the wrong wedge shot in there and spun back and then three-putted again, and I was like, I don't really feel like I've done too much wrong.
But at the same time, you're kind of disheartened. I've let everybody in basically. I've let the whole field in in three holes. Walking to 4 tee is a nice long walk so I was able to stand there and still think about I was still tied for the lead. I could have been in that position starting the day and still be in that position. That's the kind of mentality I had to have; I'm still tied for the lead; let's just hang around, let's try and not give up the lead, let's just keep going.
I hit an okay shot on the next, got it up-and-down, hit a really good chip out of a tough lie, and then birdied the next. I took a brave decision to hit driver off that tee and then made a nice putt, and that was kind of me going. I started to hit some really good shots in there. Still missed a ton of putts but I was giving myself chances instead of struggling for pars.
I always told myself if I can try and get back to even for the day and then we'll see where we stand with the last few to go because I have played the back nine well all week, a lot better than I've played the front.
Yeah, for that amount of patience, for me to have that was something I don't normally have, so I was really proud of that.
Q. In the playoff hole, do you feel like you almost had an advantage being in the rough because Josele was in a perfect spot and hit a short wedge and he spun it too much; coming from the rough, the ball didn't spin but trundled right up to where you needed to go. In retrospect was that maybe an advantage?
DEAN BURMESTER: Yeah, I think in regulation, I kind of -- I was expecting my shot in regulation. I knew I'd pitched it a couple on, that it would release. I know it had rained a little bit, but I didn't know how much it had rained on that green, for instance, because we didn't really have that much rain. The course was kind of still firm.
Then when we got to 16, 17, 18, those greens were all really soft. I was actually expecting it downwind to kind of release, my first pitch shot, and it didn't. When I saw it in the rough I knew I didn't have to worry about spin too much, it was more about the number and getting contact. To have the grass growing with me helped a lot, and then to pull off that kind of shot was special.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports