Fleetwood insists he will have no excuses
TOMMY Fleetwood insists he will not use his lengthy enforced lay-off as an excuse for poor play as he embarks on a nine-week spell away from his family in the United States.
Fleetwood has not competed since missing the cut for the first time in 48 events at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March, the world No.12 opting to sit out the first six events of the PGA Tour’s restart. However, the 29-year-old has now completed the required 14 days of quarantine across the Atlantic to allow him to compete in this week’s 3M Open and the upcoming US PGA Championship and US Open.
“I’ve played quite a lot without any kind of tournament conditions and without that side to it, without particularly trying to get a score, so it will be interesting coming back to see if I can kind of continue that rhythm,” Fleetwood said. “I’m definitely not going to use time off as any kind of excuse if I don’t play well because I feel like I’ve had a lot of good practice and playing time. So hopefully I can just pick it up and come out here and put in a strong performance.
“We’ll see. And if not, then I’m definitely going to learn from this week moving into the weeks ahead where there are some pretty big weeks coming up.”
Rory McIlroy had little sympathy for players like Fleetwood who decided not to immediately return to the United States when the PGA Tour resumed, stating: “If you really care about your career and care about moving forward, you should be here, I think.”