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Like a lot of people during the coronavirus pandemic, Tommy Fleetwood tried his hand as a chef as he knocked around the house looking for things to do – a four-month hiatus from tournament golf that he will break at this week’s 3M Open in Blaine, Minnesota.
The cooking did not go well.
“Chicken Milanese I did a very poor effort on,” Fleetwood said from TPC Twin Cities, where he will make his first career start and first start on the PGA TOUR or anywhere else since March.
“That was when I decided to leave the career as a chef,” he added with a rueful chuckle.
That’s not to say Fleetwood didn’t savor his extended stay at home in Southport, England. He and wife Clare played with their son, Frankie, nearly 3. Fleetwood read, played some golf, and watched TV – including the first six weeks of the TOUR’s return.
“It’s been beautiful family time,” he said. “It would have been nice if sort of the time we had would have come under different circumstances in the world at the moment, but for us, the time we had together has been something that probably we’ll never get again.
“… Eventually it was always going to be my turn to come (back) out,” he added.
At 81st in the FedExCup, Fleetwood was having a decent season; it’s just not easy to remember it. Back in March, he took his first 54-hole lead on TOUR at The Honda Classic, but at the par-5 18th, needing birdie to force a playoff with Sungjae Im, he went for the green in two only to drown his second shot in the water right of the green.
Having birdied 17, he took a penalty and bogeyed the finishing hole to finish third.
“You know, the game switches pretty quickly,” he said then.
Now the search for his first victory continues. Fleetwood is one of six players with 17 or more top-10 finishes without a win on TOUR since the start of the 2014-15 season.
Two weeks ago he flew to New York to spend his 14-day quarantine in the Hamptons, revisiting Shinnecock Hills – where he shot a final-round 63 to finish second at the 2018 U.S. Open – and dropping in at Friar’s Head and National Golf Links of America. Now he’s in Minnesota, where the U.S. topped Europe (Fleetwood didn’t make the team) at the 2016 Ryder Cup.
Why the late restart? Logistics. Fleetwood looked at the lineup of big tournaments – including the FedExCup, PGA Championship and U.S. Open – and decided to zero in on a nine-week run of competition that will not include his family, who remain back in England.
Although his original plan was to remain in the U.S. through the Ryder Cup at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits, that event was postponed until next year. Fleetwood’s new plan is to see how far he can get in the FedExCup, then stay through the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Sept. 17-20.
“Really happy to be here,” he said at TPC Twin Cities, where Matthew Wolff won with 21 under last year. “Nice to see so many familiar faces. That’s kind of one of the great things about the Tour is that no matter how long you’ve kind of been away, you just kind of pick up where you left off and everybody just kind of says ‘Hey’ like they saw you yesterday. … It’s nice getting out and seeing a TOUR setup again and preparing for that.”
As for what to expect from his game, he’s trying to be realistic. Like most everything else in the U.K., golf courses shut down for a few months, and while Fleetwood has practiced since they reopened, he hasn’t seen tournament conditions. He admits he left his return to the TOUR to “almost the latest possible point,” and knows he’ll probably have to play his way back into form.
“I’m going to work hard and play hard and see how well we can do,” he said.
Oh, and he’ll be leaving the cooking to others.
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Source: PGA tour
