sport news The golfer who should suit Augusta... but his best Masters finish is only 14th. ... trends now
It says something about Tommy Fleetwood’s quality that he has been tied so closely to two of golf’s recurring thoughts. Both play to the same question: who is the next man up?
In simpler times we may have asked it solely in the context of who will be next to break their duck in the majors. But these days it also probes at the contemporary drama of LIV and their next batch of targets.
Fleetwood has naturally found himself mentioned with some regularity in each of those conversations; a golfer regularly on the precipice of crashing through and a golfer too good not to draw offers from an ambitious start-up circuit.
As he sits with Mail Sport in the Florida sunshine, with the first major of the season a fortnight away at The Masters, we start with the matter at hand. That being the harder one to achieve.
‘It hasn’t happened yet, has it?’ he says, and we are talking about a record that shows the world No 12 has finished second in both The Open and US Open, with three further top-fives across those two and the US PGA Championship.
Tommy Fleetwood is looking to put his previous struggles behind him at this year's Masters
The 33-year-old has finished inside the top 20 in three of the past six years at Augusta National
Augusta? That is a beast this 33-year-old Englishman is yet to tame and it’s a little baffling when you weigh the merits of a player whose ball-striking is the envy of most on tour, whose natural draw is a perfect fit for the landscape, and whose putting is strong. Baffling for those of us watching and baffling for him as well, it would seem.
‘Believe me, I see it that way!’ he says. ‘My results there have been a bit “meh” – I had a tie for 14th a couple of years ago and that’s my best.
‘I can’t really put a finger on it. The second year I played The Masters was 2018 I had a really good third round and I was playing third to last group on the Sunday. I was feeling, “Well, this is a great course for me”, but it always has a way of being able to kick you, doesn’t it?
‘That Sunday I think I put it in the water on 15 and then finished with a bogey and ended up 17th. It’s not really what you want, is it?
‘In real terms if I tell my kids when they grow up that I had a 14th and a 17th at The Masters, it’s fine, right? They might let me off for that. But it's just not at the level the others have been. This year I looked at things and I was like, “Well I've never played the week before”, and that's the only major I've not. I'm giving that a go (at the Valero Open in Texas) and we’ll see if that helps.’
Fleetwood has always been a man for whom folk wish the best. He is bright, fun, not remotely preoccupied by ideas of his own self-importance. ‘I hit golf balls for a job,’ he says. And he does it well. People like him. But they also insert him into those discussions about the best player without one of the big four titles to his name.
‘It’s a bit of a backhanded compliment, right?’ he says.
