My mate Pep must beat Liverpool to title!
SAYS RYDER CUP HERO (AND PROUD EVERTONIAN)
WHEN it comes to Tommy Fleetwood and this shiny new season, there is but one dark cloud on a horizon brimming with limitless possibility — and he’s rather hoping close pal Pep Guardiola can do something about it.
One of the undoubted highlights of Fleetwood’s year will be hosting the British Masters on home turf at Hillside, near Southport in mid-May. But for the proud Evertonian there is the considerable prospect of the party being somewhat spoiled, since the last round just happens to coincide with the final day of the football season when, 20 miles away, Liverpool could be clinching the Premier League for the first time in 29 long years against Wolves.
‘Really? Did you have to bring that up?’ said Fleetwood, smiling broadly. ‘I don’t want to go there.
‘I don’t even want to think about it. I only want to think nice things and hope other things take care of themselves.’
Over to you Pep (the manager, of course, of Liverpool’s principal title rivals, Manchester City), with whom Fleetwood has formed a close bond over the last few years.
On to nice things, then, beginning with the chance to get his season off to a flyer this week by winning the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship for a third year in a row.
If he were to achieve it, he would become only the fifth player in European Tour history to complete a hat-trick of wins in the same event, and join pretty decent company in Nick Faldo (Irish Open 1991-93), Colin Montgomerie (BMW PGA Championship 1998-2000), Ernie Els (Heineken Classic 2002-04) and Tiger Woods (Bridgestone Invitational 1999-2001).
‘They’re the cream of our sport, the players I’ve always looked up to so, yeah, that would be a very cool way to start the season by joining such legends,’ he said.
Rather mischievously, the draw for the first two rounds has placed him alongside Tyrrell Hatton, who had the chance himself to achieve the same feat last October, when he led the Dunhill Links at St Andrews by five shots going into the final round, only to falter badly over the back nine. The third member of the group is American Brooks Koepka, who will have the opportunity to win the US Open for a third year in a row, at Pebble Beach, of all places, in June.
Fleetwood is itching to get going following a good winter break when he learned how popular and famous he has become. ‘Let’s not get carried away, I’m not David Beckham, but it’s clearly different from how it was before,’ said the Ryder Cup hero.
‘I don’t think I’m very good yet at dealing with being recognised, to be honest. I’m a bit shy about it all. I can see people looking at me and you know they’re looking at you, so you look back… and then it all gets a bit odd after that, but nice at the same time that people know who you are.’ After six years playing with the same set of Nike irons no longer in production, Fleetwood will put a new TaylorMade set in the bag today.
‘I feel I’m close to finding a long-term solution and I need to get this fixed for the sake of the next phase of my career,’ said Fleetwood, 28 on Saturday.
‘We’ve done all the practising and it certainly looks good on the range, and I won the pro-am with them today, so that’s a start. But playing with them in competition is a different ball game, so we’ll see. I don’t think I’m far off.’
Fleetwood’s victory here two years ago was the start of a dramatic rise that has seen him become a staple of the top 15 players in the world. Consequently, he rates it as the most important win of his career, although the one 12 months ago might have been better in pure golf terms, since it featured just two bogeys in 72 holes and perhaps the finest back nine he’s ever played on a Sunday.
Now he’s ready to go once more, against a field that also includes the likes of Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson and Louis Oosthuizen. Shane Lowry is the only Irish player in action.