St. Louis, Missouri …..

The European Tour has apologised to World No. 11 and England’s Tommy Fleetwood after a ‘clerical error’ led to Carnoustie prize cheque for £110,000 deposited into the account of a former club professional and now caddy by the same name but living in the U.S.

The World No. 11 ranked golfer Fleetwood earned the amount in sharing 12th place at the 147th Open Championship but for some bizarre reason the sum turned-up in the account of 58-year old now Florida caddy.

It is the practice of the R & A, as organisers of The Open, to transfer the prize-money of European Tour members to the European Tour and allow the Tour to transfer winnings.

But when the amount of $154,480 appeared and deposited on August 3rd into Tommy Fleetwood’s bank statement, and sandwiched between a 3rd August wire transfer fee of $16 and an on-line Walmart payment of $14.37, the US-based Fleetwood wondered what he’d done to deserve the amount.

The error came about as the 58-year US-born Tommy Fleetwood sought to join the European Seniors Tour and with the Tour no doubt having on record Fleetwood’s bank account details.

“It was an honest mistake,” the American-born Fleetwood.

“My mother called me to say she’s been getting lots of calls from the media.”

The European Tour confirmed the error.

“This was a clerical error which we are resolving and we apologize for the inconvenience caused to both parties,” the European Tour said in a statement.

It was Fleetwood’s friend Greg Horner who went onto Twitter to highlight the transfer blunder.

“My friend Tommy is caddy at the Streamsong Resort in Central Florida and I was with him there today when he received a notification on his cellphone,” said a Greg Thorner and a good friend of Fleetwood.

Thorner, a teaching pro from Tampa, said.  “It was only for $14 or something but he called it up and looked at his statement, and that’s when he shouted ‘Holy smoke, I’ve jut had £154,000 paid into my account!’