Tommy Fleetwood hopes that Rory McIlroy still considers him a “nice guy” despite finally finding the killer instinct that saw him break through on the PGA Tour.
Fleetwood was known as the nearly man Stateside but ahead of today’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Englishman arrives in California as a man of stature being the reigning FedEx Cup champion after winning the Tour Championship for his first PGA Tour title.
Fleetwood continued that rich vein of form on the DP World Tour, winning for the eighth time at the DP World India Championship before top scoring for Europe at the Ryder Cup as he reached a career-high 3rd in the world by the start of the new season.
The Southport native had long been dubbed as someone who was maybe too nice to win and a reporter referenced that McIlroy once made the same sentiment towards him. Fleetwood has proven that nice guys don’t always finish last.
“I hope so. Hopefully the same amount of people that liked me before still like me now,” he chuckled. “I think, yeah, I don’t know what that stigma is about like too nice to win or nice guys — you know, nice guys can win, of course. I think I’ve always prided myself on being a good person, a nice guy, but I also love playing golf and competing.
“I just, for whatever I hadn’t done before or hadn’t won tournaments or hadn’t gone my way, I felt like I just continued to learn and grow as a competitor as well. But no, I definitely looked at things and tried to analyze what I did right and what I did wrong. Hopefully Rory still thinks I’m a nice guy.”
The next step in the ladder for Fleetwood would surely be to win a major championship. He has top five finishes in all four of golf’s flagship events including runner ups at the US Open and The Open Championship.
“I don’t think it added pressure to me. I think for sure I felt the pressure to try and win. The longer that goes on, the harder it gets, even though like I said at the time I just keep putting yourself there, it will happen. I still believe all the things that I said at the time, like just because I won once doesn’t mean that stops. I still have to keep putting myself into contention if I want to win again and win more.
“That’s the first thing, like try and put yourself there, try and do the right things when you’re there and see how it goes from there. I always try and find the positives of whether it be, as you say, is this my window to win a major. Try and find the positives in that. Like I would rather you be asking me that question than not mentioning it at all because I would then not be doing that great.
“I try and find the positives in that and manage your expectation from there. Sure, I played unbelievable golf in the summer last year. With that comes higher expectations, you want to continue to do that. But equally, like you’re not going to play that well all the time. I hope I do, but if I don’t, it’s important to not think that I’m doing things wrong because I’m not doing it. It’s just that it’s the game, it’s not that easy.
“It’s like having high expectations but having a high level of acceptance with whatever comes. And hopefully I continue to play great and hopefully, hopefully this is my window to win majors and it’s a big like massive window and I can win like a bunch. We’ll see what happens. I’m very happy that that would be a question that you would ask me and hope that it could come true.”