NORTH BERWICK, SCOTLAND | Tommy Fleetwood, among the favourites for this week’s Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, was at Wimbledon before he travelled up to last week’s Genesis Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club. He had marvelled at the all-around brilliance of Novak Djokovic and, during our conversation in the Renaissance clubhouse, he talked about those well-worn Rudyard Kipling words which dominate the entrance to the Centre Court: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same.”
“I’m still learning how it’s done,” began the 32-year-old Fleetwood, who was a runner-up to Shane Lowry in the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush and finished in a share of fourth place at St Andrews a year ago.
“Win or lose,” he said, “you’re going to have to get up the next day and do what you’ve always been doing. And that, for me, is carrying on practising and chasing my dreams.”
What with his ready smile, Fleetwood understands why people tend to see him as someone who can shrug off a bad day more easily than most. However, he will tell you that there were times at the start of his professional career when a bad round would leave him feeling ridiculously low. “I suspect that no one ever knew just how hard I could be on myself,” he said.
His father, Peter, had always taught him that Tommy, the person, mattered rather more than Tommy, the golfer, and it was that advice, coupled with having great family members and friends around him, which contributed to his finding the right balance.
In 2017, when he was 26, Fleetwood took on a heap of responsibility not given to too many others in their mid-20s. Ignoring the 22-year age gap, he married his manager, Clare, who came with two children, Oscar and Murray, now aged 15 and 16. A year later, and he and Clare had Frankie, who is coming up for 6 and is already no less dedicated to golf than his father.
“I’m like a dad to all three,” Fleetwood said proudly. “I love being a part of their lives.”
Today, the family is based in Dubai, which works for all of them. The children attend an international school while Tommy has his own golf academy, one with a fast-growing reputation.
“It wasn’t easy for Clare and myself early on,” he said of the player-manager relationship, which turned into something extra. “Clare had so much more to lose than I did. She had a good job and she had her children. Others might have thought I’d disrupt her way of life.
“There was another problem, too. Our friendship was a big talking point on the DP World Tour; we were the centre of a lot of gossip. The way we looked at it was that there was always going to be gossip of one kind of another out here. We thought that it would pass, and that’s what happened.
“If anything, the situation made us stronger as a couple. Today, we couldn’t be happier and, as far as we’re concerned, it’s as if the age gap doesn’t exist.”
When it all started with LIV last year, Fleetwood discussed it with his wife. He says he didn’t need to talk to anyone else because Clare, as he said, always sees the bigger picture.
“We realised that I wasn’t in any position to give up the golfing life I have at the moment,” he said. “It was all about what I truly wanted for myself in trying to win majors and to become the best golfer I could be. Even now, with the rumpus that’s going on, I’m not thinking, ‘If only I’d taken the money when it was offered.’ We were happy with our lot when we made up our minds at the start, and nothing’s changed since.”
“All the home players want to win an Open almost too much, and it’s easy to get tense when you’re trying so hard."
Tommy Fleetwood
That Fleetwood likes the way he’s playing at the moment is hardly surprising. Following on from a ’22 season in which he finished in a share of fifth place in the PGA Championship as well as that T4 at St Andrews, he has carried on in much the same vein this summer. To date, he has had four top-five finishes on the PGA Tour, one of them in last month’s U.S. Open, and stands No. 22 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
Hoylake, where he has played about a dozen times across the years, is fewer than 30 miles from Southport, where he was brought up, and is very much his territory. “For me,” he said, “it’s 100 percent a home Open.”
When GGP asked about his expectations for this coming week, he confessed to being a little wary of the word “expectations.” He thinks that they can be distracting in the way you have to manage them. “All the home players want to win an Open almost too much, and it’s easy to get tense when you’re trying so hard.”
His way of coping with the pressure is to remind himself that he should be having all the fun in the world as he does what he has always wanted to do since he first tagged along after his father on the golf course.
And if he had a 6-footer to win this week, would that be part of the fun?
A quizzical look was followed by a peel of doubtful laughter.
“It would be a moment when I’d have to put all my trust in my routine.”
E-MAIL LEWINE
Top: A resurgent Tommy Fleetwood is knocking on the door again of a breakthrough major triumph.
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