Fleetwood, Tommy (1991- )

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    BMW PGA Championship: Tommy Fleetwood Still Seeking American Success

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    Heading into the BMW PGA Championship in his home country, the English golfer talked about the Olympics and playing in the United States.The season might be over on the PGA Tour, but there are still some important events in Europe, beginning with this week’s BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.Among those participating will be England’s Tommy Fleetwood, 33, who won the silver medal at the Summer Olympics in Paris and finished 20th in the Tour Championship in Atlanta earlier this month. Yet for all his accomplishments, Fleetwood, ranked No. 12 in the world with seven career wins on the DP World Tour, is still searching for his first victory in the United States.Fleetwood, who finished in sixth place last year at Wentworth, spoke recently about the Olympics and his quest to finally break through in the United States.The conversation has been condensed and edited.Were you satisfied with this season on the PGA Tour?I feel good about a lot of things about the year. Whenever you make it to the Tour Championship, it’s always a success. Having said that, I wish I had contended in more tournaments.What do you need to do to go to the next level?Honestly, it’s all been very, very close. It’s easy when you get to this point to think “OK, I’m going to look for a magic answer or rebuild things.” I think I can continue to do the majority of the same things and build on the consistency I’ve had and tweak a couple of small areas.“Having an Olympic medal that you’ll pass down to generations will never not be special,” Fleetwood said.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At the British Open, a Mom’s Influence Looms Large for Many Golfers

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      Golf has long had a tradition of fathers and sons, but when the British Open was last held at Royal Liverpool in 2014, Rory McIlroy put golf’s moms on equal footing.In the beginning, there was Old Tom Morris and his son, Tommy, both of St. Andrews. The father won the British Open — the only championship then — four times and his namesake son won it four times, too. Yes, wet wool, 19th-century golf, in all its paternalistic glory. The men marched off the first tee and into a heavy sea wind and nobody knew when, or if, they would come back.And ever since, fathers have been raising sons in the game, both generations dreaming of hoisted trophies. O.B. Keeler spilled barrels of ink writing about Bobby Jones and his little-boy-blue start in golf at the behest of his golf-loving father, Robert Purmedus Jones (also known as ‘The Colonel’) who was a prosperous Atlanta lawyer.If Arnold Palmer said it once, he said it a thousand times: his father, Deacon, the course superintendent and head pro at Latrobe Country Club in western Pennsylvania, taught young Arnold how to grip a club once and only once. Palmer never changed it.Jack Nicklaus’s pharmacist father, Charlie, a three-sport athlete at Ohio State, started his son, Jackie, in golf as an oversized 10-year-old in Columbus, Ohio, in the summer of 1950, at their club, Scioto Country Club. Mid-country, midcentury — middle class, at its most northern tier. Donald Hall’s “Fathers Playing Catch with Sons” is largely about baseball but Charlie and Jackie on the course in the 1950s could have fit right in.Twelve years later, Jack Nicklaus defeated Arnold Palmer in an 18-hole playoff at Oakmont Country Club and claimed the first of his record 18 major titles, the 1962 U.S. Open. It was Father’s Day. Since then (after a date change) most U.S. Opens have concluded on Father’s Day and most years the father-son relationship is an elemental part of the winner’s life story.This next phrase is known throughout golf: Tiger and Earl. The green-side hug between father and son after Woods won the 1997 Masters Tournament is one of the iconic moments in golf history. It was Tiger’s first major as a pro and he won by 12 shots. Nine years later, Woods fell into his caddie’s arms, after winning the British Open at Royal Liverpool, 10 weeks after Earl Woods died at age 74.Tiger Woods and his father Earl after Woods won the 1997 Masters.Associated Press Photo Dave MartinBut in 2014 Royal Liverpool became the scene of an evolving narrative when Rory McIlroy, 25-years-old and the lone child of working-class parents from outside Belfast, won the British Open. It was his third major title and in a lovely, old-fashioned gesture at the awards presentation, with thousands of fans ringing the 18th green, McIlroy dedicated the win to his mother.“This is the first major I’ve won when my mum has been here,” he said. “Mum, this one’s for you.”Rosie McDonald McIlroy, who helped pay for her son’s overseas junior-golf travel by way of her shift work at a 3M plant, was beaming. Later, she tentatively put several fingers on the winner’s claret jug as her son grasped it tightly.Five years later, Woods won the 2019 Masters. It was kind of a shocker: he hadn’t won a major in 11 years. In victory, his mother, Kultida, born and raised in Thailand, was standing in a grassy knob about 10 yards off the 18th green. She couldn’t see her son’s winning putt, but she could hear the thunderous response to it. Her face was painted in pride. In victory, Woods spoke in a soft voice about how his mother would rise at 5:30 in the morning to drive Tiger in a Plymouth Duster to nine-hole Pee-wee tournaments, 90 minutes there, 90 minutes back.Last year, when Woods was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, ‘Tida,’ known within Woods’s tight circle for being tough and direct, was in the first row, beaming just as Rosie McIlroy was in 2014.Kultida Woods smiled as Tiger Woods made his way toward his family after winning the 2019 Masters.Mike Segar/ReutersWoods talked, without notes, about the many times his mother brought him to a par-3 course near Tiger’s boyhood home in Southern California, giving him 50 cents for a hot dog and 25 cents for the end-of-day call home. Woods staked his early and successful putting contests with those quarters his mother gave him. Tiger, telling personal stories about his mother, and Tida, laughing with cameras on her, was a rare personal moment for both.This year at the Los Angeles Country Club the final round of the U.S. Open fell, as usual, on Father’s Day, but the day belonged to a mother and her son.The winner Wyndham Clark had heard Woods talk about his own mother at Augusta National during the Masters and at the Hall of Fame induction. It stuck with him.Breast cancer had ended his mother Lise Clark’s life 10 years ago, when Wyndham was still a teenager. He nearly quit golf after she died. He said his mother had a nickname for him — ‘Winner’ — and had a two-word mantra for him: “Play big.”The technical aspects of the game were not her forte. They weren’t for Rose McIlroy or Tida Woods, either.When Clark was in high school, his mother came to one of his matches. She watched him make an eight-foot putt and clapped enthusiastically for her son.“Mom,” Clark told mother as he came off the green. “I just made triple bogey.”Mom didn’t know and mom didn’t care. Her son had holed a putt.Minutes after winning the U.S. Open, Clark said, “I just felt like my mom was watching over me today.” Mother’s Day, in a manner of speaking. A wistful one.“I just felt like my mom was watching over me today,” Wyndham Clark said after winning the U.S. Open in June.Matt York/Associated PressAnd now the British Open was once again at Royal Liverpool. After two rounds the English golfer Tommy Fleetwood was alone in second place, five shots behind the leader, Brian Harman. Everywhere Fleetwood goes on the course he is greeted as “Tommy-lad.” Even McIlroy went out his way to find Fleetwood, after an opening-round 66, to give him a “Tommy-lad!” of his own.Fleetwood, one of the most likable players in the game today, grew up in modest circumstances about 30 miles north, in Southport, where his mother was a hairdresser. Fleetwood has a distinct look, an upturned nose that is often sunburned, blue eyes that look almost plugged in, and long, flowing hair. Sue Fleetwood longed to cut her son’s hair but Tommy-lad wouldn’t have it. Sue Fleetwood died last year at 60, two years after a cancer diagnosis.“She took me everywhere,” Fleetwood said Friday night, on the one-year anniversary of her death. Rain was starting to fall and the air was cooling.“She was always the driver. She would always take me to the range. To the golf course. To wherever I wanted to go. She was always a very supporting influence. She was a very tough woman but she never said no to taking me anywhere. She was great to me.”There was nothing maudlin about his tone. Fleetwood was talking about golf and his mother and he was smiling. Another mother’s day, in a manner of speaking, was coming. Win, lose or otherwise, another mother’s day was coming for another golfing son. More

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      Brian Harman Romps to British Open Victory at Royal Liverpool

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      Harman, a 36-year-old American, came close to winning the 2017 U.S. Open, but his triumph on Sunday gave him his first major title.Brian Harman knew Saturday evening that sleep might be hard to come by, as much as he knew he needed it. He had been in this situation — the 54-hole leader at a major tournament — six years ago and knew the agonizing cost of a fitful night: a runner-up finish, months and then years of what-ifs, a career not on the margins but not among the ultra-elite.He slept well enough this time. Harman, nestled atop the leaderboard at Royal Liverpool Golf Club since Friday, made a methodical march on Sunday to win the British Open by six strokes, finishing at 13 under par. With a final round defined more by get-it-done grit than star-turn splash, Harman held off a band of challengers whose tournament scores wound up swarmed around each other’s instead of close to his.It was the largest margin of victory at a men’s golf major tournament since Bryson DeChambeau’s six-stroke win at the 2020 U.S. Open.“I’ve always had a self-belief that I could do something like this,” Harman said. “It’s just when it takes so much time, it’s hard not to let your mind falter, like maybe I’m not winning again.”“I’m 36 years old,” he added. “Game is getting younger. All these young guys coming out hit it a mile, and they’re all ready to win. Like, when is it going to be my turn again? It’s been hard to deal with.”Sunday ended those doubts.As the first pairing went off on Sunday, Harman had a five-stroke lead, a comfortable gap but not an insurmountable one, especially not at a tournament that in 1999 saw Paul Lawrie overcome a 10-shot, final-round deficit to win at Carnoustie in Scotland. That history aside, the greatest mystery for most of Sunday at a decidedly soggy Royal Liverpool seemed to be not whether Harman would win, but by how much.Unlike Carnoustie, Royal Liverpool, hosting the British Open for the 13th time, has long been kind to the men who climbed the leaderboard early. With his victory, Harman became the seventh player to win an Open at the course after having led after two rounds.“He won by six, so there’s nothing really any of us could have done,” said Jon Rahm, one of four players to tie for second.Harman, who played in college at Georgia and turned professional in 2009, has been a reliably talented player on the PGA Tour, mustering 50 top-10 finishes before the Open. But despite having nearly $29 million in career earnings coming into Sunday at Royal Liverpool, where his performance won him $3 million, Harman was hardly seen as a headliner.He had two career victories, the John Deere Classic in 2014 and the Wells Fargo Championship in 2017. The next month, in what had been his best showing at a major, he tied for second at the U.S. Open at Erin Hills in Wisconsin, where he lost to Brooks Koepka by four strokes. Ranked 26th in the world (and never higher than 20th) before his Royal Liverpool victory, he said he did not consider himself underrated.Asked over the weekend what he considered, before Sunday, his greatest achievement in the sport, he leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms and turned his eyes away, a subdued tour stalwart turned Open contender thinking through professional golf’s version of a workaday résumé.“This year will be the 12th straight year that I’ve made the FedEx Cup playoffs,” he replied after about five seconds.His record in this year’s majors is enormously mixed, though he has now risen to the No. 10 ranking. He missed the cut at the Masters Tournament and at the P.G.A. Championship, and tied for 43rd at the U.S. Open. Then came Royal Liverpool, the course where he played his first British Open in 2014. Back then, Rory McIlroy won, and Harman tied for 26th.He proceeded to miss the cut during his next four Opens. Coming into this one, before returning to the course in northwest England that had also found champions in players like Bobby Jones, Peter Thomson and Tiger Woods, he finished tied for 12th at the Scottish Open.Harman’s odyssey through this Open began on Thursday, when his 67 put him in fourth. On Friday, he birdied the first four holes and made eagle on the last for a 65 that gave him sole command of the leaderboard. After a pair of early bogeys, his 69 on Saturday brought him into Sunday with a five-stroke lead over Cameron Young, and a six-shot advantage over Rahm, whose Saturday round was the best at any Open at Royal Liverpool.Harman watched his shot on the 13th green on Sunday as the crowd watched him run away with the lead.Paul Childs/ReutersThe course had been overrun with hazards. Scores of bunkers that, as the 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith said, were effectively one-shot penalties. A newly crafted par-3 17th hole that so punished a U.S. Open winner that he suggested it be redesigned again. Sunday brought the most bitter dose of British Open weather: gusting winds and drenching rains, the course feeling at once like a sauna and a shower.But a five-shot lead at sunrise, visibility of the sun notwithstanding, helps.“He’s a very tough, experienced character,” Padraig Harrington, a two-time Open winner, said before Harman’s final round began. “Sometimes we see somebody leading a tournament and you kind of go, ‘Oh, is he going to hang on?’ I don’t think that’s the case with Brian Harman. Nearly every day he goes out on the golf course he’s like playing with a chip on his shoulder, like he’s fighting something. I think this is ideal for him.”The raindrops were still plummeting when Harman stepped up to the tee. With his back to the nearby claret jug, he steadied himself, took one glance after another down the fairway and unleashed his left-handed swing. He would make par on the hole, avoiding a repeat of Saturday’s bogey. But he barely missed a par putt at No. 2, where even a police officer had turned away from the crowd to watch, to shrivel his lead. Young failed to convert a 14-foot birdie putt that would have narrowed it by another stroke.Seven groups ahead, though, McIlroy was surging. He had begun the day at three under. After five holes, he was at six under and suddenly tied for second. Rahm was making pars, and Young, paired with Harman, had already bogeyed the first. By the time Harman’s ball was rolling across the third green, there were five players — McIlroy, Rahm, Young, Tommy Fleetwood and Sepp Straka — tied for second. But Harman’s margin remained as much as it was at the start.Other potential rivals were nowhere near, not after the cut had sapped the leaderboard of much of its prospective star power. Most of those who remained did not pose severe threats. Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked player, finished the Open at even par. Wyndham Clark, the victor at last month’s U.S. Open, left Hoylake at one over, as did Smith. Koepka, who won this year’s P.G.A. Championship and was the runner-up at the Masters, was eight over.At the fifth hole, a par-5 that had been the week’s easiest test, Harman’s tee shot flew 249 yards and crashed into bushes, positioning him just more than halfway to the pin.That pin was where Rahm, the reigning Masters champion, began to make headway, tapping his ball for his first Sunday birdie. Once Harman made it to the green, an eventual 12-foot try for par failed, and when the fifth hole closed for the tournament, Harman’s lead was down to three strokes.The suspense did not exactly linger.Harman, with the claret jug.Gregory Shamus/Getty ImagesHe nudged it upward again on the par-3 sixth hole, where he holed a birdie putt from about 14 feet, and then again at No. 7, where he made a birdie from 24 feet.Steadiness returned until Harman made a bogey on the par-3 13th hole that is a favorite of Royal Liverpool members. But the players closest to Harman were fast approaching the 18th green, and running out of time. McIlroy, who was looking for his first major tournament victory since 2014, missed a birdie putt there to finish at six under. Tom Kim soon left the last green, still stuck at seven under, just like Rahm, Straka and Jason Day would be, too.Elsewhere on the course, Harman himself was edging toward turning the probable into the inevitable. He birdied the 14th hole with a putt that raced about 40 feet downhill into the cup. Another birdie followed on No. 15, moving his lead to six shots.The rain kept coming. Harman maintained his march. A parade of defeated players headed toward the clubhouse. The claret jug’s engraver prepared.It would soon be time to add Harman’s name. More

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      Jon Rahm Roars Up The British Open Leaderboard To Contend On Sunday

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      Jon Rahm’s 63 was a record for an Open at Royal Liverpool, but Brian Harman will enter Sunday with a five-shot lead.Every major tournament has the cruel, curt power to humble golf’s stars. Rory McIlroy at the Masters. Justin Thomas at the P.G.A. Championship. Phil Mickelson at the U.S. Open (OK, make that a lot of them).This British Open was seeming awful vengeful, more hostile and taunting to the sport’s powers than most recent majors — until Jon Rahm mounted the sort of Saturday stampede that propels a player into the record books and closer to contention.The world’s third-ranked player had stumbled to a three-over-par 74 on Thursday at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, good for all of 89th place. A 70 on Friday moved him 50 places forward. He arrived at the course a dozen shots off Brian Harman’s lead. But when Rahm finished his Saturday round with a birdie, just after Harman made a solitary, silent walk to the first tee to begin his, the gap between the men, one a two-time major winner, the other an also-ran, was down to four.Before nightfall on England’s western coast, where downpours and winds were sporadic menaces on Saturday, Harman had pushed his margin over Rahm up to six, edging him toward hoisting the freshly engraved claret jug on Sunday evening. Cameron Young was nearest to Harman, five strokes back.But Rahm’s Saturday 63 was, by two shots, a record for an Open at Royal Liverpool, which is hosting the tournament for the 13th time. It was also a forceful answer to two days of largely ho-hum play by many of the world’s marquee golfers at the Open, where the leaderboard had often felt like a glimpse into the game’s depths.“I gave up the shots at major championships that are very costly, and that’s mainly it,” Rahm said on Saturday. “That’s what I was feeling. I knew I was playing better, and I knew my swing and my game felt better than the scores I was shooting.”Saturday, a feast for imaginative shotmaking, was different.Often, Rahm noted, the world’s best visualize what they would like to happen with this shot or that one. Often, he noted, reality intrudes. But his Saturday, he suggested, had been marked by the feeling of seeing “everything the way it’s supposed to happen unfold.” On Saturday, he said at one point in Spanish, he had “felt invincible.”He made his day’s debut birdie on the fifth hole, and added another on the ninth. Another came on the 10th, and it was around then, he recalled later, that his shots started hurtling downwind. He picked up more birdies on the 11th and 12th holes, two more at Nos. 15 and 16 and the last on the 18th, the crowd worked into a thunder.On Saturday, Rahm said had the feeling of seeing “everything the way it’s supposed to happen unfold.”Jon Super/Associated PressUntil Rahm’s Saturday surge, disappointment had been running close to endemic among the sport’s top players, not because many stars would not win but because they would not even come close.The first five pairings on Saturday — the players who came nearest to missing the cut — included Scottie Scheffler (the current world No. 1), a five-time major champion (Brooks Koepka) and one of the game’s most chronically popular figures (Rickie Fowler).The last five pairings on Saturday? The players most clearly positioned to contend? Koepka alone had more major titles than the entirety of the group, which entered Saturday with an average world ranking of 59th, 40 spots lower than the mean for last summer’s third round at St. Andrews.The top of the leaderboard was soon speckled with headliners, and headliners-in-waiting. Young, who finished second at last year’s Open, finished at seven under, a stroke ahead of Rahm. Jason Day, a former world No. 1, Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland were among the players at five under. McIlroy, currently ranked second in the world, put together a 69 to go to three under.But it has still been a weird week, after a Friday cut that knocked out a head-turning array of recent major champions, including Mickelson, Thomas, Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa. Other top-tier players, including Scheffler, Koepka, Fowler and Patrick Cantlay, barely got to stay for the weekend.“Maybe everyone is just not quite on their stuff this week,” said Cameron Smith, the winner of last year’s Open, who brought his score to one under on Saturday when he shot a 68. “I’m not really sure of the answer there. But those bunkers, I think if you’re trying to be aggressive — and generally major winners are aggressive players — it can bite you in the bum.”Cameron Smith, who won last year’s British Open, watched his drive off the tee on No. 1 on Saturday.Phil Noble/ReutersAll many players could do was look to get through Sunday.“Win?” said Scheffler, who would be 16 strokes off the lead at the end of the third round.“A hurricane and then some I think is what it’s going to take for me,” he added on one of the few major Saturdays where he was done before the leaders even stepped up to the first tee. “I’m just going to go out tomorrow and do my best and move my way up the leaderboard and try and have a good day.”Robert MacIntyre, the runner-up at last weekend’s Scottish Open, was similarly resigned. On Saturday afternoon, his mind was already wandering toward the hours after the tournament.“Know that you’ve got 18 holes before you put your feet up,” he said.Rahm, revived, was in a far different place.“I’ve done what I’ve needed,” he said, “which is give myself an opportunity.” More

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      Names Old and New Top British Open Leaderboard

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      Conditions were calm at Royal Liverpool as the final men’s golf major of the year began. Don’t expect them to stay that way.A strategy for winning one of golf’s major championships only rarely looks like this: Find your flight canceled and the next one delayed, walk about a half-mile to passport control, endure a grinding wait at baggage claim less than 48 hours before the tournament’s first tee times and stare down jet lag.It worked well enough for Stewart Cink on Thursday at the British Open.“When the gun goes off and you start in the tournament, you’ve got that adrenaline, and adrenaline does wonders for your jet lag,” Cink, 50, said. It also seemed to do plenty good for his scorecard, which reported a three-under-par 68 that positioned him high on the first-round leaderboard at northwest England’s Royal Liverpool Golf Club.It is forever a dangerous game to forecast a tournament’s fate after a single round, and it seemed particularly risky after the early going at Royal Liverpool, where the leaderboard’s top reaches blended old names and new ones and an army of formidable, familiar challengers lurked just below.There was Cink, who won the 2009 Open at Turnberry in Scotland by outlasting Tom Watson, then 59, in a playoff. But Christo Lamprecht, an amateur who plays for Georgia Tech, finished his five-under round with the lead. Tommy Fleetwood, a past Open runner-up, and Emiliano Grillo, who birdied five of his last eight holes, matched Lamprecht later in the day, letting them begin Friday with one-stroke advantages over Brian Harman, Adrián Otaegui and Antoine Rozner.Fleetwood, Grillo and Lamprecht had two-stroke leads over a group that included Cink and Wyndham Clark, the winner of last month’s U.S. Open.The amateur Christo Lamprecht finished the first round in a three-way tie for the lead.Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesRory McIlroy, who won the British Open in 2014, when the tournament was last played at Royal Liverpool, finished at par, and Cameron Smith, looking to defend the title he won at St. Andrews in Scotland last summer, was one over.With the weather at the course, known as Hoylake, expected to deteriorate during the tournament — the R&A’s chief executive, Martin Slumbers, listed the weekend’s options as “wet” or “very wet” — Thursday was perhaps the best chance for the 156-man field to make shots without diabolical complications. (The players certainly had better odds of shooting par or better than finishing one of the course’s soft-serve ice cream cones before seeing it melt into a sticky, spectacular mess.)Fleetwood, who is from Southport, England, just 30 miles north, is a crowd favorite nearly everywhere but especially in Britain. On Thursday, he delivered the kind of sterling play that has lately eluded him early in the major championships. He had not finished below par in a major’s first round since the 2021 Open at Royal St. George’s, where he ultimately tied for 33rd.“As first rounds go, that’s absolutely the one you wanted, and to get off to a good start feels good,” said Fleetwood, who struggled with early tees but left No. 5 emboldened by a birdie. He returned the stroke on the next hole, before picking it up again on the seventh. He birdied four holes on the back nine and started a streak of three at No. 14.England’s Tommy Fleetwood on the 14th green. He birdied four holes on the back nine.Paul Childs/ReutersLamprecht’s rise began sooner, with a birdie on the third hole. But it came only after a poor tee shot at No. 1 — when he felt probably his “only bit of nerves” all day, he said — that prompted a pep talk from Devin Stanton, his caddie and his assistant coach at Georgia Tech.“Listen, you’re playing the Open as an amateur,” Lamprecht said Stanton told him. “No need to stress.”Lamprecht, who at 6-foot-8 is among the tallest players ever to compete in the British Open, now being held for the 151st time, responded in force. He stumbled twice on the back nine but used four birdies within that stretch to finish at 66.“I think the way I played today I earned to be on the top of the leaderboard, as of now,” Lamprecht, 22, said. “It’s not a cocky thing to say. I just personally think I believe in myself, and I guess stepping onto the first tee box if you’re a professional or a competitor, you should be believing that you should be the best standing there.”Cink, a Georgia Tech alumnus who still uses the practice facility there, has gawked over Lamprecht’s talents, including his enormous power, and marveled again on Thursday afternoon.“As a 50-year-old golfer seeing a guy like him, he is pretty much like your basic nightmare, watching a guy like him coming up,” Cink said on Thursday. “He can hit it like 330 in the air and he hits those little shots around the green so soft, it’s amazing. He’s got a lot of really good potential in front of him.”Not that Cink was ready to cede the tournament to Lamprecht, not after a day when he almost entirely avoided Royal Liverpool’s 84 brutish bunkers. Their flatness, Cink observed, sends a momentum-loaded ball toward the lip, unimpeded by gravity. And despite his score, he did not regard Hoylake as particularly suited to his strengths.“But playing smart and being disciplined and patient and keeping your heart in the right place, that fits my game,” said Cink, who turned 50 in May and has been mulling whether to play more events on the PGA Tour Champions, as the senior tour is known these days.The defending champion Cameron Smith, left, with Wyndham Clark during the first round at Royal Liverpool on Thursday.Paul Childs/Reuters“It’s required on courses like this, and it comes down to execution,” said Cink, whose wife, Lisa, is his caddie this week. “Today I executed very well, and it was pretty evident in the scorecard. It was a nice clean day. Putted well from inside eight feet. That’s the kind of stuff you have to do in a major.”The cut, set at the top 70 plus ties, is expected Friday night. Headed into the second round, the past major winners Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas were all in danger of seeing their ambitions of winning the claret jug end quickly. Thomas, who won the 2017 and 2022 P.G.A. Championships, shot 11 over on Thursday, putting him in a tie for 153rd.But some other major champions, including Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama and Scottie Scheffler, were only four strokes off the lead, laying the groundwork for a jostle toward the top.Cink insisted Thursday that the tournament was hardly the exclusive dominion of the game’s younger players. Two years ago, he noted, Phil Mickelson won the P.G.A. Championship at 50, and then there was Watson’s for-the-ages performance in 2009.“I have no doubts that I can win this,” Cink said. “It’s going to take a lot. It’s going to take some really, really exceptional play on my behalf, but it’s in there.”Indeed, even a player as preternaturally confident as Clark — last month he said that his May victory at the Wells Fargo Championship had (correctly) persuaded him that he was good enough to win a major — noted the rigors of a tournament like this one.“This is just Day 1,” Clark said. “Got three more days.” More

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      The Five Players to Watch at the Scottish Open

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      Many of the top golfers will be in Scotland. Here are a few hoping to break into their ranks.A major title won’t be up for grabs — that will come a week later at the British Open — but the Genesis Scottish Open, which begins on Thursday at the Renaissance Club in North Berwick, should generate a lot of attention given the caliber of contenders playing.Eight of the top 10 players in the world rankings, including No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, No. 3 Rory McIlroy, and No. 4 Patrick Cantlay, will be in the field. Attempting to defend his crown will be No. 6 Xander Schauffele, who won by a stroke in 2022.Here are five others to keep an eye on.Tommy Fleetwood has had his moments in the Scottish Open, finishing second in 2020 and in a tie for fourth last year.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesTommy FleetwoodOvershadowed during last month’s final-round battle in the United States Open at Los Angeles Country Club between the eventual champ, Wyndham Clark, and McIlroy was the seven-under 63 fired on Sunday by England’s Tommy Fleetwood, 32, who became the first player to shoot that score twice at the Open. His other 63 came in 2018 at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, Long Island.Nonetheless, Fleetwood, now ranked No. 22, failed on both occasions to win the trophy, and in more than 100 starts has yet to capture a tournament on the PGA Tour. He came very close the week before the U.S. Open, losing in a playoff to Nick Taylor of Canada at the RBC Canadian Open. In May, he tied for fifth at the Wells Fargo Championship.Fleetwood, a two-time member of Team Europe in the Ryder Cup, has had his moments in the Scottish Open, finishing second in 2020 and in a tie for fourth last year.Justin Thomas, 30, won the 2022 P.G.A. Championship but has fared poorly in this year’s other majors. Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesJustin ThomasWith his tie for ninth at the Travelers Championship last month, his first top-10 finish since March, it seemed Thomas, one of the game’s top players, was back on track.Or not.A week later, he missed the cut at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit.Thomas, who has dropped to No. 20 in the world, struggled mightily in the second round of the U.S. Open. He hit just five fairways on his way to shooting an 11-over 81, missing the cut by 12 strokes.“It’s pretty humiliating and embarrassing shooting scores like that at a golf course I really, really liked,” he said.Thomas, 30, who won the 2022 P.G.A. Championship, has also fared poorly in this year’s other majors. He missed the cut at the Masters and tied for 65th in the P.G.A.With the British Open a week away, this would be a good time for him to regain his old form.Rickie Fowler’s victory two weeks ago at the Rocket Mortgage Classic was his first in four years.Cliff Hawkins/Getty ImagesRickie FowlerSpeaking of old form, with his victory two weeks ago at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, his first in four years, Fowler, 34, is officially back.It was no surprise given how well Fowler, one of the tour’s most popular players, was performing in recent months. He has finished in the top 15 or better in nine of his 11 tournaments since mid-March.In the U.S. Open, he started off with a record-setting 62 and was tied for the lead after three rounds. Although he faded in the final round with a 75 to tie for fifth, he played well the next week at the Travelers Championship, tying for 13th. In the third round, Fowler, who is ranked No. 21 after starting the year at No. 103, flirted with a 59 before shooting a 60. A week later came the triumph in Michigan.A lot was expected of Fowler, a star at Oklahoma State University, when he turned pro in 2009, and he didn’t disappoint. In 2014, he finished in the top five of each of the four majors. In 2015, he won the Players Championship.The U.S. Open gave Wyndham Clark, ranked No. 11 in the world, sudden fame.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesWyndham ClarkIt wasn’t too long ago when casual golf fans were probably saying to themselves: Wyndham who?The U.S. Open changed that, giving Clark, ranked No. 11 in the world, sudden fame.The question is: Was his performance a fluke — other less-heralded players have claimed major championships only to vanish soon afterward — or will Clark, 29, be a force on the tour?Clark picked up his first victory at this year’s Wells Fargo Classic and has the game to win more tournaments, including majors. He hits it a long way, and how he was able to hold off McIlroy down the stretch at the Open in Los Angeles was something to behold.“It’s been a whirlwind few weeks and an amazing season so far, all coming together in L.A. a few weeks ago,” Clark said. “I’m looking forward to keeping things going over the summer.”In June, Viktor Hovland, 25, captured his fourth tour victory and biggest yet, the Memorial Tournament.Darron Cummings/Associated PressViktor HovlandIn three of the past four major championships, Hovland, ranked No. 5, has been in the hunt. Sooner or later, he’s bound to break through.Hovland, who would be the first man from Norway to win a major, was the co-leader with McIlroy heading into the final round of last year’s British Open. He faltered with a 74 to finish in a tie for fourth.At this year’s Masters, he opened with a 65 and, though he had his troubles the next two rounds, was still only three back going into the final round. For the second straight major, however, he closed with a 74 to finish in a tie for seventh, failing to make a birdie until the 13th hole. A month later, he tied for second in the P.G.A. Championship, two behind the winner, Brooks Koepka.In June, Hovland, 25, captured his fourth tour victory and biggest yet, the Memorial Tournament, in a playoff over Denny McCarthy. Hovland knocked in a 30-footer on 17 and saved par from five feet on 18 in regulation. In the playoff, he made a seven-footer for the win. More

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      Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship Players to Watch

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      The defending champion, Thomas Pieters, is among those who could win the tournament.A new year on the DP World Tour brings new hope for players who have been around long enough to know how fickle and unforgiving the game can be from week to week — shot to shot — even for the best in the world.The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which begins on Thursday at Yas Links in the United Arab Emirates, should be no different. Some in the field will be in midseason form, while others will struggle, searching for answers before another season slips away.Here are five players to watch.Sepp StrakaStraka, 29, recorded his first PGA Tour victory at the Honda Classic last February and finished second at the Sanderson Farms Championship in October. Yet he also missed six cuts in a row in the middle of last season and missed three straight in November.His triumph at the Honda, in which he rallied from a five-stroke deficit with a four-under 66 in the final round, was the first on tour for an Austrian-born player. He had entered the week ranked No. 176 in the world.Straka, who lived in Austria before moving to the state of Georgia when he was 14, will have something to play for besides himself this year. He has a chance to be a member of Team Europe for the Ryder Cup matches in Rome.He opened the year by finishing tied for 21st at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.Henrik Stenson of Sweden last year at the P.G.A. Championship. He won his first LIV tournament, earning $4 million.Orlando Ramirez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHenrik StensonStenson, who had been appointed Europe’s Ryder Cup captain in March, was removed in July after he joined the LIV Tour. Luke Donald was named as his replacement.This will be Stenson’s first appearance on the DP World Tour since the dismissal. He and the others who bolted for LIV have been allowed to participate in DP World Tour events pending the resolution of a court case.Stenson, from Sweden, won his LIV debut at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey by two strokes over Dustin Johnson and Matthew Wolff. He earned $4 million for the victory in July.Tommy Fleetwood of England last year at the Zozo Championship in Japan.Atsushi Tomura/Getty ImagesTommy FleetwoodOne of Europe’s top players in recent years, Fleetwood has not won a tournament on the PGA Tour. Yet he fared well last year in the major championships, signaling he might notch that first victory before too long.Fleetwood, from England, missed the cut at the U.S. Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., but tied for 14th at the Masters in Augusta, Ga., tied for fifth at the P.G.A. Championship in Tulsa, Okla., and tied for fourth at the British Open in St. Andrews, Scotland. Fleetwood, who turns 32 on Thursday, was one of eight players to compile at least two top-5 finishes in the majors.Thomas Pieters of Belgium at last year’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which he won. It was his sixth tournament victory since 2015.Ryan Lim/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThomas PietersPieters, 30, from Belgium, was the winner in Abu Dhabi last year — or, more precisely, the survivor.During Friday’s second round the winds kicked up to 40 miles per hour. Rory McIlroy summed up how many players were no doubt feeling: “I’ve never been so glad to get off a golf course.”Yet Pieters managed a two-over 74 that day to stay within striking distance of the lead. He finished a stroke ahead of Rafa Cabrera Bello and Shubhankar Sharma. Pieters, who has been ranked in the top 50 in the world, has also endured his share of difficulties.After winning three tournaments in Europe in 2015 and 2016, he went three years before he collected his fourth victory and then another two years before he picked up his fifth, which came in the 2021 Portugal Masters.No wonder the triumph on Yas Links in 2022, his sixth, was so gratifying.“I disappeared for a couple of years, I guess,” Pieters said after winning the tournament. “I’m so happy to be back.”Seamus Power of Ireland last year at Sea Island Resort’s Seaside Course in Georgia. He attended East Tennessee State University, where he won five tournaments.Cliff Hawkins/Getty ImagesSeamus PowerIn October, thanks to three straight rounds of 65, Power captured the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. A week later, he tied for third in the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba in Mexico. Then came a tie for fifth at the RSM Classic in Georgia. Of the 12 rounds in those three events, he broke 70 on 11 occasions. The other round was a one-under 70.Power, 35, from Ireland, attended East Tennessee State University where he won five tournaments including the Atlanta Sun Conference Championship twice.The next step for him is to be a real factor in the major championships. Power tied for ninth in last year’s P.G.A. Championship and tied for 12th at the U.S. Open. More

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      Tommy Fleetwood Tied For First With Tom Hoge At The Players Championship

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      “It was break some golf clubs or shave my beard,” Fleetwood, the English golfer, said of his recent struggles on the PGA Tour. “I went for the beard.”PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Tommy Fleetwood, a golfer once ranked in the men’s top 10, has been missing from a PGA Tour leaderboard for so long, fans may not have recognized him when he vaulted into first place during the first round at the Players Championship here on Thursday.Fleetwood has also shaved his trademark — and popular — frowzy beard. And it turns out the facial hair is missing, in part, because of his recent two years of jagged play, which resulted in Fleetwood losing his PGA Tour playing privileges.“I was in a really bad mood,” Fleetwood, 31, said. “It was break some golf clubs or shave my beard. I went for the beard.”Fleetwood, a winsome Englishman best known for his shoulder-length hair and second-place finish at the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, played like his old self for 18 holes on Thursday. His six-under-par 66 was one of the lowest scores among the several dozen golfers who finished a first round that was twice delayed by heavy rain and thunderstorms.When play was suspended because of darkness on Thursday night, Fleetwood was tied atop the leaderboard with Tom Hoge. Roughly half the field did not complete their rounds and will hope to tee off early Friday morning, though there is more rain in the forecast.But Fleetwood’s usual sunny disposition broke through, and his golf backstory would be relatable to anyone who has played the game recreationally or professionally. While he spent more than 15 minutes trying to explain how one of the world’s best golfers had sunk into an on-course funk that at one point dropped him to 137th in the FedEx Cup rankings, he also smiled and simplified.“It’s just a strange game that you never seem to be able to understand or that makes no sense,” Fleetwood said with a laugh.While he admitted to being somewhat lost in a golfing abyss, he refused to be downtrodden.“I still have one of the best jobs in the world,” Fleetwood said. “I’ve just not been performing to the level that I want to perform at. Again, I’m not going to sit here and moan or complain about playing poorly for a couple of years.”Fleetwood, who plays on both the PGA and European tours, offered some explanations for his drop from the world’s ninth-ranked player in 2018 to 49th entering this week’s Players Championship.“There’s been certain things in my swing that I haven’t quite understood,” he said. “So then your confidence takes a hit because you’re not quite comfortable out on the golf course. It adds up.”He added: “My results haven’t been terrible, but I’ve lacked obviously very good results. And then I think especially from a world ranking standpoint, that makes it very, very difficult. So I’ve just sort of been gradually declining.”Fleetwood playing an approach shot on the 14th hole.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesTraveling the world to play on two tours has not helped.“You’re playing minimal events on both tours,” Fleetwood said. “Even in my best years, I was always starting way behind the 8-ball just to play consistently throughout those years. Again, it’s hard to make headway. And when you’re not seeing good scores and the shots aren’t quite there, it just becomes harder and harder for it to change that momentum.”For Fleetwood, like most golfers, the game mystifies. And that goes for even the best of the best. He did not, for example, come to Florida expecting to be leading the Players Championship at any point. Late Thursday afternoon after his round, he talked about playing “dreadful” lately — but then birdied his first two holes.That may have brought some good karma, but it was halted when inclement weather forced a delay of more than three hours. Fleetwood, however, was undeterred.“I was quite happy when the delay came,” he said. “You knew a delay was coming anyway, so I took the break and later I got to practice. Then I started the day by holing a putt and got going again.”The rain-soaked fairways and greens made conditions challenging, but Fleetwood remained unfazed, clocking three more birdies in his next nine holes. He finished with a birdie on the par-5 16th hole and another on the treacherous 18th. The close left him grinning, but he would not predict future results, not after the last two years. Looking ahead to his next round, he said: “I might play terrible, I might play great. We’ll see.”Fleetwood was much more certain about the eventual fate of his once-famous beard.Asked if his wife, Clare, likes him clean shaven or with facial hair, he answered: “She definitely has a preference, and it’s not this one.”Fleetwood does think he looks younger without the beard. He was playing in a tournament with his fellow tour players Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa on his 31st birthday in January, he said, when the duo looked at him and told him: “We had to Google your age. I thought you were 37, 38.”He added: “Everyone kind of noticed that I look a lot younger without the beard.”But then Fleetwood had a final thought.“Clare definitely prefers me with a beard, so I’ll definitely grow it back,” he said. “As long as I can keep my temper and keep smiling, then I won’t have to shave it off again.” More