A gentleman in victory, as he demonstrated in the Ryder Cup in Italy, where he secured the decisive point against Rickie Fowler. And a gentleman in defeat, as he showed yesterday after letting victory slip away at the Travelers Championship on the final hole. This is the latest lesson from Tommy Fleetwood. He may win more or less throughout his career, but his behaviour on and off the course is exemplary. It is his legacy, and no one will dispute that.
Fleetwood spoke to the media immediately after the tournament at TPC River Highlands. He first spoke to television and then to all the journalists present. Without a bad gesture. Without a bad response. The Briton did not hide his disappointment, but he understands that there is no point in making a drama out of what happened. All that remains is to learn what you can and try to put yourself in that same position as soon as possible.
“I’m upset now, I’m angry… when everything calms down, I’ll look at the things I did well and what I can learn from. It’s been quite a while since I last had a chance to win a tournament. I did a lot of good things to win and I didn’t. It hurts. There were also others that I can definitely do better. I have to do them better. The stupidest and worst thing you can do would be to turn a week like this into a hurdle for what you do in the future. Obviously, I played great, put myself in a great position, led the tournament for 71 holes. Now what I want is to try to get into this position as soon as possible again and try to correct what I did wrong this time. I’d love to hide somewhere and sulk, and maybe I will, but it really doesn’t make sense to turn it into something negative for the future, just take the positives and move on,” he explains with extraordinary maturity and common sense.
Fleetwood admitted right after the tournament that there were a couple of shots he would have liked to do differently. “Maybe the second shot on the last hole, maybe the putt. Keegan made birdie, so chapeau to him, but I think from where I was, at least, I should have gotten into the playoff. It’s a horrible way to finish. Disappointing. I’ve hit pretty decent shots that left me with some work to do, and I wasn’t able to fix it, with the two three-putts on holes 3 and 4,” he explains.
In any case, Fleetwood doesn’t see everything as bleak and takes away the stretch of golf he played between holes 7 and 14. “In that stretch, I was very much in control and playing very well. If I had made any of the putts on 12 or 14, who knows. I haven’t hit many bad shots in terms of execution, just a couple of bad decisions that I didn’t recover from, which is quite poor. These are things I need to work on,” he points out.
What the phlegmatic English player has no doubt about is that one day his first victory on the PGA Tour will come. He doesn’t despair. “I would have loved to win today, but I guess the search continues. When it happens, it will be very, very sweet. I keep saying that I haven’t really been in a position to win that many times to worry about when my victory will come. Today was one of those days, I led for 71 holes and it didn’t happen. In my mind, I’ve won plenty of PGA TOUR tournaments, just not in reality, and I’m sure that moment will come if I keep working.”
