Tommy ‘very happy’ as he gets into gear for US Open with Portugal outing
SOUTHPORT golfer Tommy Fleetwood completed his preparations for the US Open in style with a third-place finish in the Portugal Masters.
Pre-tournament favourite Fleetwood carded a closing 64 at Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course in Vilamoura to finish 13 under par, three shots behind South Africa’s George Coetzee.
Fleetwood surprised many when he opted to play at Vilamoura rather than head to the United States to prepare for the second major of the year at Winged Foot in New York.
But his first appearance on the European Tour proved worthwhile as he sharpened up parts of his game he felt were lacking during his five postshutdown starts in the US.
The 29-year-old was pleased with his final round and preparations for a much tougher test at Winged Foot in the second major of the season.
“I’m very, very happy with how I played and it’s nice to put yourself in contention and have to hit shots like I did on 17 and 18 down the stretch,” he said.
“I was nowhere near for a few weeks in America and it’s so hard to take a step back when you’re playing tournaments because you always have a round of golf to play.
“I did some really good practice and I wanted to play this week because I was working on things I knew were right, but you have to hit shots [in competition] because that’s the only time you’re going to find out how it’s doing.”
Meanwhile, Coetzee revealed how an unusual combination of snooker, darts and football during lockdown laid the foundation for his fifth European Tour title and a second victory in the space of a week.
He said: “You’d be surprised at the stuff I was working on during lockdown. I was doing keepy-uppys with a football to test my mental skills. At the start I could do maybe five, at the end of lockdown I could do 86 if I entered with a good frame of mind.
“I was practising darts, I was practising all sorts of funny things away from golf to work on my mental game. But the main sport I focused on was snooker. It’s probably the closest sport you get to golf because it’s a stationary ball that you have to approach in a certain way.
“I don’t have any technical background in snooker, everything was based on my frame of mind. At the start of lockdown I could do maybe a 20 break, at the end I almost made a 50 break.
“Unfortunately I lost my club championship semi-final last Monday – maybe that’s what inspired me to win back-to-back weeks to feel better about myself.”