In wake of car accident, European Tour pro one off lead in Dubai

It’s been a hectic and scary 48 hours for European Tour pro Dean Burmester.

On Wednesday, Burmester was on his way home from an outing with his family in Dubai when the Uber he was riding in crashed into the car ahead of it on the freeway. Pictures posted on Burmester’s Instagram showed a white Lexus with significant damage to the front-left fender.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7pZKFyFaxN/

“So took an @uber ride back to my hotel last night and it was cut a little short,” the post said. “Luckily the family is all ok except for a couple bumps and bruises. Now to see if I can get myself ready to tee off at 13:00 today.”

Well wishes filled the comment section of the post, but the traumatic experience didn’t seem to have any ill effects on Burmester’s game.

The 30-year-old South African fired a three-under 69 in his opening round at the Dubai Desert Classic. He followed up his strong play with another solid round on Friday, posting four under to sit in a tie for second place with Robert Karlsson and GOLF’s favorite Twitch streamer Bryson DeChambeau.

Burmester addressed the crash in his post-round press conference following Round 2.

“Yeah, it was pretty hectic,” Burmester said. “We went to the aquarium and on our way back we took an Uber on the way back to the hotel, and there was traffic on the other side of a blind rise and our Uber driver was just too slow and so we went into the back of a Porsche. And then there were four cars involved, but luckily we just got away with a couple of bumps and bruises and just thank God that we’re all okay.”

A poor showing after a scary situation like that would have been understandable, if not expected, in a game that demands such emotional stamina. (The state of Burmester’s game as of late also portended a poor showing. Coming into the tournament, he’d missed four-straight cuts that saw his world ranking drop all the way to 257th.)

Luckily, Burmester and his family escaped relatively unscathed from the incident. Other than a few minor scrapes, it sounds like they will all be ok.

“We’re just bruised and battered and a little bit sore,” Burmester said. “A slight ankle problem, but nothing too serious. And my wife has got quite bad whiplash, but other than that we’re surviving and just happy to be here.”

And now he’s in position to have a chance to win the tournament. Burmester is playing in the penultimate pairing with DeChambeau on Saturday, teeing off at 12:43 p.m. local time.

To receive GOLF’s all-new newsletters, subscribe for free here.