PLAY SUSPENDED BUT FLEETWOOD BACK ON TOP

TOMMY FLEETWOOD marked his first round in almost two months with a near-perfect loop of Wentworth before play at the BMW PGA Championship was suspended out of respect for the Queen’s passing. While flags on the grounds were lowered to half mast and Friday’s play was scrapped, the DP World Tour have so far been unable to say if their tournament will resume on Saturday.

At the time of the suspension, which came with 30 players yet to complete their first round, Fleetwood was jointly top of the leaderboard having excelled on his return to play after a seven-week absence to mourn the death of his mother. The world No 29 endured the worst of the stormy weather but delivered the finest of first rounds to shoot an eight-under 64, with six birdies in the final seven holes. It tied him with Andy Sullivan and Norway’s Viktor Hovland, one stroke ahead of a third Englishman, Matthew Jordan. Rory McIlroy was among a cluster at four under par.

Against the backdrop of the sport’s continued political chaos, which extended to Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood going against a request from Tour bosses to forego any LIV branding, the charges of the European trio of Fleetwood,

Sullivan and Hovland were sufficiently impressive to briefly shift the narrative back to on-course matters.

‘I was a little nervous because I haven’t played for a while,’ said Fleetwood.

‘It felt like a long time away. It was never really about the score — it was just nice to be back and it was nice to see my dad watching this morning. ‘It’s the right time for me to play again and this event was always the aim, but it was different on the first tee.’ Much has happened in golf’s civil war since Fleetwood (right) last teed up at The Open. The 31-year-old himself was long rumoured as a LIV target, and having kept quiet on the thorniest subject in golf, he was more measured than most about the Saudi-backed breakaway series.

‘I have no bad feelings towards any of the LIV guys,’ he said. ‘I’ve had far bigger things going on to bother about where anyone is playing. ‘I’m not saying the LIV Tour doesn’t have a place in the world. But what they don’t have and probably will never have is a story like Oliver Wilson last week (Wilson claimed his first win since 2014 in Denmark).’ Meanwhile, Ian Poulter refused to be drawn on comments from McIlroy, in which the latter said he no longer has ‘much of a relationship’ with Poulter or two other former Ryder Cup team-mates in Westwood or Sergio Garcia.

But the LIV rebel did touch on the widelydistributed video of him engaged in what appeared a heated conversation on Wednesday with Billy Horschel, who had labelled the LIV contingent as ‘hypocrites’.

Poulter said: ‘I have no problem with Billy. Billy is quite an animated guy and I am too. He has strong opinions and I normally do too so you can tell how that would look.’