JOHANNESBURG — Dean Burmester was wondering what a lot of South Africans were wondering at some point this week. He was down near the first green, talking to Jon Rahm, gazing back up the hill at the grandstand they had just teed off from.
“Small taste of the Ryder Cup,” he said to Rahm. “That’s about as good as it will ever get for me. Pretty special.”
The point was not the comparison, nor the fact that Rahm added some context about crowd size. Burmester didn’t even know the TV mics were capturing the convo. The point was more that Burmester was dreaming a bit. Levitating mentally. He will never play a Ryder Cup and he knows it. At this rate, he won’t play a Presidents Cup either. But was LIV Golf’s visit to his home country a little bit like the Ryder Cup for the home team? Yeah, it was a little bit like that.
Burmester was equal parts mascot and player this week, flagging approach shots as often as he thumped his chest, danced for the delirious crowd and twirled on tee boxes, his arms extended wide like Maximus Meridius in “Gladiator.”
It was a full week of that from the 36-year-old journeyman, mainly because the LIV template for massive international events worked again, just like it has in Australia the last few years. More than 100,000 tickets were sold, here in the major, global metro of Johannesburg, and they had a single patriotic squad to cheer for.
“I’ve got a bit of a tan from taking my hat off all the time,” Burmester said in the moments after it finished. “It’s just something — I wanted to do well for the fans and honored to show my appreciation wherever I went. It’s amazing to have that kind of support, and they’re shouting down the fairways and on the greens and stuff like that, and I just wanted to say thank you. That’s basically what I wanted to do. The more noise they could make, the better.”
And noise they made.
Does South Africa party harder than Australia? LIV Golf wanted to test that theory. Its events mimic festivals more than anything else these days. At least the ones that can guarantee attendance records. The template is obvious: bring as many people in for golf, musical acts or sunshine and beer — whichever they want most — spread ‘em out, pump ‘em up with the Beastie Boys and sic ‘em on the traditionally quiet norms of the game. It’s gonna feel different. It’s gonna cost a ton of money. It’s gonna stand out if golf is good, too. Was this the first time Burmester found thousands upon thousands of fans walking with his group? Maybe! And maybe not. He’s been around the block. But we know how he felt about this.
“Greatest week of my life,” he said. And that was after his team settled for second place. His teammate Branden Grace missed a birdie putt that would have pushed the Southern Guards into a playoff for the team competition. Considering the rain-soaked course and the liquified nature of the crowd, it’s maybe better it didn’t happen.
The boisterous Minister of Sports, Art and Culture, Gayton McKenzie spent the morning stoking the fire, shouting into cameras about how his team was going to win Sunday, and they were living up to it early. What was once a nine-stroke lead slowly dissipated over the round and eventually collapsed when the South African boys added just a single birdie over their last 16 collective holes. Louis Oosthuizen finished with a bogey on a par-5. The President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, was on hand to thank them for their service, but in the end he was doing a smiley TV hit alongside Bryson DeChambeau, who vanquished their team dreams in regulation, and then vanquished Jon Rahm in a playoff.
When asked how Sunday night would go for LIV’s South African players, who had been promised the biggest party in the country if they won, Louis Oosthuizen said he was headed for bed. They were all tired. There’s your difference between winning and losing.
“I’m ready for a brandy and Coke,” Burmester said, during what had to be his 30th interview of the week. The impromptu press conference was held on the 1st tee box, with countrymen surrounding them from above one final time.
“Each of us got to tee off on this 1st tee here, and each of us walked off saying exactly the same thing: we couldn’t feel anything. It was the greatest thing I’ve ever felt on the golf course. I’m just proud to be South African; that’s it.”