Tommy Fleetwood: ‘It wasn’t disastrous’

The golfer talks with the journalists after the first round at Royal Portrush

Tommy, tough day. How’d you reflect on it? Well, it wasn’t disastrous, so that was that’s one thing. Um, yeah. Uh, I sort of played the first few okay sort of I think everything, you know, that kind of I I didn’t get any breaks. That was for sure. Everything that kind of could go wrong sort of went wrong. Struggled a little bit in crosswinds at times off the tea. Wasn’t easy. Um, and uh, I I mean the best way to look at it is the leaders are at 4 under. So, um, it wasn’t, you know, that bad of a day. It was just a struggle and I would have loved to have had a better start. But, as you say, you’re not out of it. So, something to build on hopefully tomorrow. Yeah. I mean, get get out tomorrow, hopefully get a good start, really just get some momentum because I had none today. And um so yeah, that that would be great really because I do think you know that there’s the odd chance out there that you if you’re going to shoot a score you’ve got to take um like yeah you know a couple of shots here and there could have gone either way. I feel like I puted well on that back nine to to stay in it where I felt like it was really difficult and I obviously didn’t really have my game. So um you got yeah look at the positive side of it. You know I’m six behind. If I can get closer than that tomorrow, um, then you know, you’re still in it. I mean, if you How hard is it to stay patient when there’s no momentum looking for it? Yeah, it’s tough. I mean, I it’s like I said, like majors, the open that they’re all a battle of the mind as well, like you know, u managing your own expectations, managing how much it means to you, the difficulty of the golf course. So, there’s, you know, that’s why the majors, that’s why they’re the toughest test. So, um but yeah, it was today was a today was a difficult day in terms of just um the I never really had an opportunity to sort of get my score back if you like. I I mean I made a good P 11 and then 12 felt like I hit a pretty good T- shot. Then bunkers are I mean I hit it in too many bunkers today really. But them bunkers are just sucking you in on that right side and then good pitch shot hit a good putt. Leave it, you know, leave it in the jaws like things like that. You need kind of them to happen. But at the same time, you know, look at the puts that I hold on, I think 13, 14. Uh I miss on 15, but then 16 or 17. So like big puts. So um you know, be happy with that. Did you Did you have a there there was some talk about a bunker you were in on five that hadn’t been raaked? Yeah, it wasn’t a great uh Yeah, it wasn’t a great rake job. I I probably could have managed it. I mean, first thing is I was not very happy to be in there. I mean, that that was the first thing. So, that’s that’s my fault. Um, but yeah, it, you know, it wasn’t, like I said, when things are going, things weren’t going well. It was it was like in a somebody’s hitting mark, you know, hadn’t really been great. And, uh, I probably could have managed it better. I still tried to I still felt like I could hit I tried to hit what I thought was the right shot like kind of duff something because I knew I couldn’t get any sort of strike you know perched on the ball so I tried to duff it but then you’ve got to get the height as well and um you know so that was yeah that was bit harsh to see the bunker rakers back do you think that that would be hand the amount I hit him in today I’m sure Finn was probably asking for the bunker rakers back too is it concern told me that the message wasn’t rel Yeah, I don’t remember when it changed actually. I sort of just Was it really? So, I’ve always had bunker eggs until this week. I thought so. I was like, I thought that was odd. But um uh I mean still you just you just rake the bunkers, right? It’s just uh it’s um it’s part of part of the game. I was just um and you don’t you know you don’t know what’s gone on before. I’m not I’m not going to hold it against anyone too much. You don’t know what was going on. You don’t know what was happening in that moment. So, you know, I I’m not going to uh get, you know, get angry to, you know, about anyone for it. You don’t know what’s happening. But yeah, it wasn’t wasn’t great. And maybe Yeah, Bunker Rakers would have been nice. Thank you. Thanks, guys.