Sardonic tweet fires up Fleetwood
dubai — A sardonic tweet spurred Tommy Fleetwood to go for it and despite finishing tenth at the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa last Sunday, he leads the Race to Dubai with 256, 737 points. He is in a position of strength and as the English golfer confessed not many chances like this would come his way to finish at the top of the European Tour.
“It’s very special to get to the Race to Dubai, you know, the final event, and be playing to win. Something I’ve never done before. I’ve never been close, and it’s something that I didn’t expect to be doing this year,” Fleetwood conceded during an interaction with media on Wednesday.
“Yeah, it brilliant and there’s a list of very, very great players that have won The Race to Dubai. If it’s my turn, then that’s amazing. That’s brilliant,” he effused.
“I mean, whatever happens, I’ve never done this before, and it will have been a brilliant experience no matter what. I obviously clearly want to win. Don’t know how many chances you’re going to get in your career to do it,” he added.
For the last three year, Fleetwood hadn’t won anything. “I hadn’t won in three years, so, I think the goal at the start of the year was to win again.”
“I think after I had won, and then I finished second in México, I think I had a mini-goal at the time of - because like at that point of the year, I exceed my expectations. Already it had been amazing,” he said when asked when did think of the Race to Dubai title.
“I remember having a minigoal thinking I wanted to be leading The Race to Dubai when I got to Wentworth. Sergio (Garcia) cocked that one up for me. But there were certain things going on throughout the year.
“I remember seeing a tweet somewhere, and somebody laughed at the thought of me winning The Race to Dubai, so that motivated me a bit more,” he said about what spurred him to give it a shot for the top title.
“Middle of the year, it kind of turned up as all of a sudden it was kind of a potential goal. When I won France, I think that’s when, you know, like that was it then. Now this is actually a real thing, I could possibly win The Race to Dubai. So I started thinking about it then,” he revealed.
On finishing tenth in South Africa, Fleetwood believes it was one of the rounds where he struggled to get momentum but he would believe that from a different perspective the tenth finish in the Nedbank Golf Challenge kept him ahead in the race.
“I’ve had pretty decent results. It’s been like a very steady run of results. I’ve not had great first rounds, so it’s been tough to get momentum going that way. But I felt like I played well,” he reasoned.
He needs to finish second in the DP World Tour Championship to make sure he wins Race to Dubai but he would like to beat his fellow Englishman Rose and end at the 18th hole on Sunday clutching two trophies.
sunilvaidya@khaleejtimes.com