Tommy Fleetwood has returned to competition for this week’s $5m Alfred Dunhill Links Championship naturually still on a high following Europe’s two-point triumph at the Ryder Cup.
The proud Englishman was also honoured with the Nicklaus-Jacklin award for the ‘Player of the Championship’ winning his match in each of the first four team match sessions at Bethpage Black, pairing with Rory McIlroy in Foursomes and Justin Rose in Four-ball, and he ended the week with a 4-1-0 record while Team Europe held on to win by a 15-13 margin. But the Englishman was recognized as much for his on-course performance as his comportment inside the ropes, as he remained a calming presence during a week when things sometimes got heated amid the boisterous New York crowds.
However ahead of teeing-up this week in Scotland there was no escaping the nastiness of events taking place last week in the grandstands all about the host New York course.
And in his response, Fleetwood made sure to highlight that it not all USA fans who should be having the finger pointed at them.
“There’s a big difference between — like there’s a big difference between a hostile environment and personal comments. Again, I think we were all prepared for it”, said Fleetwood
“It’s not — of all the talk that there’s been, it’s not about the entire U.S. fans or the crowd. Like I don’t think that we should be sort of using that as a whole. I have so many friends that are Americans and that were at the Ryder Cup, people close to me, saying, I’ve got to support my own team, things like that. That’s just what it is. You’re going to get a tough environment when you get to an away Ryder Cup.
“Yeah, personal comments can go too far, and you obviously hope that that doesn’t happen again, or it shouldn’t happen. But it’s just so out of our control, and I think Keegan and — you just have to understand what you’re getting into and what you’re there for and go play golf.
“Like I say, how many people were there? 50,000 people? 60,000 people? You can’t have a go at everyone because the majority don’t do that. I have no hard feelings about it at all. Like I said, it helps that we won, obviously. It’s hard to tell 50,000 people to act the right way. I think that’s one of the amazing things about the Ryder Cup is the home fans or at way fans and the atmosphere that it creates. Who knows what happens in the future, but this particular Ryder Cup, we were all very prepared for and it showed how we played”.
Well spoken and needed to be pointed out.
