Time and again, Tommy Fleetwood has come up just short of winning on the PGA Tour. But he’d rather harness his emotions into something positive than give in to the anger and the doubt.
“I’ve thrown the odd club in the water or something when I’m out there and maybe feel a bit better for a while,” Fleetwood quipped Tuesday. “But I’m not that great at being angry. It just doesn’t suit me.”
The accomplished Englishman has yet to win stateside, and the near-misses this season no doubt have stung. But he didn’t need a victory to finish fifth in the FedEx Cup points standings ahead of this week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
Fleetwood’s season is inarguably strong on paper — seven top-10s, only one missed cut in 18 events — and he has tied for third and tied for fourth at the first two legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs. But the T3 finish at the FedEx St. Jude Championship came after a late bogey Sunday meant he would not join a playoff between J.J. Spaun and countryman Justin Rose, the eventual champ.
“It’s funny, really — you walk off the course on Sunday last week and I was happier with a fourth-place finish than I was with a third in Memphis,” Fleetwood told reporters. “It’s a strange game that way. But just very happy with the consistency of my golf and the level I’ve been playing at.
“Golf is a crazy game. You never know what you’re going to turn up with week in and week out, but this year has been a very good year, and the last few weeks have been good as well.”
Another heartbreaker Fleetwood endured came in June at the Travelers Championship, a signature event and the site of his sixth career runner-up finish on tour. After blazing rounds of 66, 65 and 63, he ceded the lead late on Sunday to Keegan Bradley, who made an improbable birdie on No. 18 while Fleetwood three-putted for bogey and signed for a 72.
“I work really hard on making sure that I make it all into a positive,” Fleetwood said. “Of course, I’m not going to feed you lies and say, ‘Oh, Memphis I thought I did everything great,’ or ‘Travelers I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Of course I got things wrong down the stretch and it didn’t happen for me.
“But you just learn from those experiences, and I think the overriding, I guess, emotions are a lot of positives. I would rather you be questioning me about not finishing tournaments off than not questioning me at all about anything. So I’ve obviously shown a lot of really good stuff and put myself in great positions.
“I’ve said every single time that I just want to put myself there again. I want to give myself another chance. I’ll finish it off at some point. I’ll get it right and I’ll get it right more than once. But being there is actually the hard part in a way.”
He said the disappointments are motivation, and the positives — the numerous great finishes, the fact that he’s a lock for Europe’s Ryder Cup team — can serve as confidence boosters.
Fleetwood will tee off Thursday with the same chance as the other 29 players in the field to win the Tour Championship and hoist the FedEx Cup. Gone is the staggered “starting strokes” format, which would have allowed World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler to start the week at 10 under and Fleetwood at 5 under.
Four rounds of golf from now, the man with the lowest score is the winner of the tournament, the FedEx Cup and $10 million. What a time for Fleetwood’s first PGA Tour win to come.
“I’m not going to be picky about which one I choose to have as the first one. This one would be a good one,” Fleetwood said. “… But I think it would be pretty funny if I won this week and then got the FedEx Cup as well. I think that would be funny.”
–Field Level Media
