South African Dean Burmester along with his wife, Melissa and four-year old son, Jordan were fortunate to walk away from a four-car smash in returning to the Dubai hotel on Wednesday night.
They were passengers in a UBER-hired Lexus that ploughed into the back of a Porsche around two kilometres from their hotel for this week’s Omega Dubai Desert Classic.
Burmester, 30 who has won seven times on the Sunshine Tour injured his right ankle while his wife was a bit shaken-up but fortunately there were no injuries to their son.
“It was pretty hectic and quite scary as we were heading back from visiting the Dubai aquarium and there was traffic on the other side of a blind rise in the road and our Uber driver was just too slow and so we went into the back of a Porsche,” said Burmester.
“There were four cars involved. I have a slight ankle problem, but nothing too serious. And my wife’s got quite bad whiplash, but other than that we’re surviving and just happy and thank God that we’re all okay.”
The Zimbabwe-born South African has since been undergoing treatment on his ankle and also taking pain-killers though surprisingly the injury has clearly not affected his golf in producing rounds of 69 and 68 to be tied in second place at seven-under par midway through the second round at the Emirates Club.
“I have been seeing the greens and the lines pretty well,” he said.
“So I’m just happy to kind of just be out here playing. And the new changes are all good. I think 9’s a proper hole with that tee now. We haven’t used it the first two days, but this weekend’s going to be good fun off that back tee.
“There are a couple of green changes on six and a couple other things. But on the whole it’s amazing and they have done great job. I think the green keeping staff with the rough and everything have certainly taken the 5-under cut away.”
As for Ireland’s hopefuls, Graeme McDowell is currently one place outside the projected cut mark after returning a disappointing three-over par 75 this morning.
Shane Lowry is going along nicely at two-under par through 11 holes while Padraig Harrington is at one-over par through 13 holes (two-over on the day).
Full scoring HERE
Leave a comment