ENGLAND’S MR HAPPY & MR ANGRY
Odd couple eye Augusta redemption
Ask Tommy Fleetwood about Tyrrell Hatton and he starts chuckling. ‘He’s always Mr Angry, isn’t he?’ he says.
Ask Tyrrell about Tommy, and it provokes an equally wry response: ‘How on earth can you play golf and be so calm all the time?’
Here they are then, the yin and yang of English golf, both in their mid-twenties, ranked 12th — Fleetwood — and 17th in the world, just outside the favourites for the Masters and who can only marvel at how the other has achieved so much.
Hatton, from the south (Marlow), looked up to Colin Montgomerie and displays a similar hair-trigger temper on the course — though not when he steps off the 18th green.
Fleetwood, from the North (southport), is into yoga and meditation and applies a Zen-like discipline to the sport’s maddening frustrations. Who’s got it right? ‘I’d find it exhausting to be angry all the time on the course,’ says Fleetwood, laughing. ‘But he’s a gritty little man. What I like about Tyrrell is you take him to the biggest stages and he’s not afraid to perform. He’s a winner and he’ll show it over the next few years. He knows what he’s doing with his anger.
‘It’s misconstrued by a lot of people and the giveaway is that he laughs about it afterwards. He does it when he feels he has to and it’s clearly working.’
Hatton, a Liverpool fan, is similarly respectful of Evertonian Fleetwood’s wildly different approach. ‘I’ve not played that much with him in competition but he’s always pretty calm, so yeah, we’re definitely opposites on the course,’ he replies.
‘The thing I love about his game is his ball-striking. Does he ever miss a shot? No wonder he’s so calm. From an England perspective, it’s great to see him doing so well and setting such a high bar for the rest of us. I’m just going to keep working hard to keep up with him.’
You won’t see Hatton working hard on the practice ground. Like Monty before him, he is a player who hits about 20 balls and walks to the first tee.
‘I don’t know how he does it,’ says a bemused Matt Fitzpatrick, a close friend of Hatton and another of England’s starlets. ‘Tyrrell was leading the Honda Classic last year going into the final round and 40 minutes before teeing off he’s chatting away in the caddie lounge having not hit a practice ball. Twenty minutes before, he does a TV interview. It’s weird but it works and you can see him winningg majors.’j Fleetwood, byconrprise
contrast — no surprise — believes the secret is to be found in the dirtt on the practicee range.
Now we’re at Augusta, where Mr Happy and Mr Angry found they had something - in commonn last year, as bothth failed to get to gripsrips with the course’surse’s stringent demands.ands. ‘I failed miserably tto cope withith the swirling wind,’ confides Hatton about the fact only three players finished below him.
Fleetwood, who goes out with Tiger Woods in tomorrow’s opening round, is similarly honest. ‘I got my preparation wrong and lost so many shots around the greens on the back nine,’ he says.
There’s every reason to hope it will be different this time. Both made two- day reconnaissance missions last week; both will go into their second Masters aware Danny Willett won his second in 2016 with a similar ranking. Fleetwood is coming to the end of a three-month stint in the Us, which he has enjoyed immensely. Based in Orlando, he says: ‘There’s not much to complain about whenwh you can put your shshorts on in the mornmorning, get in a bugbuggy and go and prpractice. Let’s faface it, that’s not hhappening at FFormby or sandiway now, iis it?’ He won’t be mmoving to the sstates full-time, ththough. ‘Home is stilstill England,’ he said. ‘With two stepkids kidsstepkids in school, I want to be therthere when I can.’ AAs FlFleetwoodt says, it’s easy to get the wrong idea about Hatton. He’s placid, funny and good company when he hasn’t got his game face on. ‘ I’m not going to say I’m looking to improve on last year because it would be difficult to go the other way,’ he says. ‘But I’ll be ready this time. I’m looking forward to making amends.’ Let it all pour out or keep your emotions close to your chest? England is spoiled for choice.