Fleetwood right at home as the people’s choice
SOUTHPORT, England — He is the poster boy of the upcoming British Open, his flowing hair and stubbly face adorning the banners draped across lampposts on the approaches to Royal Birkdale.
Tommy Fleetwood has the looks of a rock star and the popularity of one in this seaside town in northwest England, especially this week.
Golf ’s oldest major is back in Southport for the first time since 2008 and, in Fleetwood, one of the sport’s rising stars, the locals have one of their own for whom to cheer.
“I’ll have the most support I’ve ever had in my life, from people I’ve grown up with, friends, family, you name it,” Fleetwood said Monday. “It’s going to be a different experience, for sure.”
Growing up, Fleetwood lived in a house just around the corner from Royal Birkdale. The place held a mystical quality to a golf-loving kid who dreamed of winning the Open Championship from the age of 5.
He’d play at the local municipals — Southport, Formby Hall, and Southport & Ainsdale, where he’d sweep the paths — and would get on Birkdale only when accompanying his father, Peter, on evening dog walks.
“I might have bunked on the odd time and hit the odd shot,” Fleetwood recalled, “but that was about as far as it goes.”
The first British Open he went to watch was at Royal Birkdale in 1998. He remembers defending champion Justin Leonard being on the front cover of the program, being in awe of a 22-year-old Tiger Woods walking past him, and faking golfers’ signatures in his autograph book because he failed to get any himself.
Nineteen years on, it’s his signature in demand.
Fleetwood is at his highest-ever world ranking of No. 14 and is the No. 1 player on the European Tour after winning in Abu Dhabi and France this year.
To a former coach and mentor, Fleetwood is not just a sentimental pick this week but a logical one.
“He’s the player in form, he’s one of the best players in the world and he’s playing a course he knows,” Jim Payne said. “Some people talk about pressure he’ll be under, but I don’t see that. I only think he can do well. It’s set up for him, really.”
Fleetwood was 11 — with a handicap of 11 and already hitting the ball 230 yards — when he was voted as junior sports personality of the year at a ceremony in nearby Sefton. Peter Fleetwood said at the time that the costs of his son’s early golfing career “will all come back the day Tommy wins the Open.”
How fitting if he achieved that at Birkdale and became the first Englishman to win an Open in England since Tony Jacklin in 1969 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.