Fleetwood’s ebay putter
Briton using £90 club as he shoots second 65 Mcilroy in the hunt after firing seven-under 63
After three years in which he has risen into the world’s top 15, finished second in two majors and become a Ryder Cup hero, Tommy Fleetwood has surprisingly ditched his putter and swapped to one bought off ebay by his caddie.
Ian Finnis paid £90 for the Odyssey DFX 2-Ball Blade last year for Fleetwood’s birthday and had it re-shafted and re-gripped. It is the same model Fleetwood played with in his formative years and he had been increasingly using it in practice. However, the Omega European Masters is the first week he has employed it in competition and he is delighted with his decision after taking 21 putts in his first-round 65 and again rolling it well in his second-round 65 yesterday.
“The last three or four weeks, I putted poor,” Fleetwood said. “But here, this has worked really well. Nothing like holing a few putts. It eases everything off when you’re going into the greens.”
On 10 under, Fleetwood is in a group of five players in second place – including Rory Mcilroy – one off the Crans-sur-sierre lead, held by Gavin Green. The world No13 has not won in 18 months, but after his runner-up finish at last month’s Open Championship, he is plainly in good form. There was a fourth place in the WGC St Jude Invitational the week after Royal Portrush and he then went on to be one of the 30 players to qualify for last week’s Tour Championship, the PGA Tour’s season finale.
Yet, despite the bold move to switch putters, Fleetwood is not feeling a sense of urgency.
“Every week there will be 10, 20 guys playing really well and just to make the cut these days you’ve got to play really well,” he said. “And then there’s the guys who are playing really, really well. Seventy-two holes is a long time to keep concentration. When you tap in on the first on Thursday morning it’s equally as important as when you finish on Sunday. Nothing in life is supposed to come easy. It’s just nice to keep putting myself in positions and hopefully I’ll start winning more. Maybe that will start this week.”
With respect to Green, the 25-year-old Malaysian, and the others around him on the leaderboard – including Andres Romero, the Argentine who shot a 61 at the Alpine layout yesterday – Mcilroy is looming as Fleetwood’s main threat. Fresh off his $15million (£12.3million) victory in Atlanta on Sunday, the world No2 was back to playing millionaire golf as he shot a sevenunder-par 63.
“I’m excited and yeah, it’s good to give myself another chance to win, especially as it would have been easy to take my foot off the gas after last week,” Mcilroy said.