Tommy Fleetwood, the bad guy? He has some nice thoughts on that

Tommy Fleetwood gets annoyed.

Right?

“I think in general there’s probably plenty of things that annoy me,” he said, “but I’m kind of pretty relaxed off the golf course really.

“I mean, what have I got to complain about or get annoyed about?”

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The question can be thought of as philosophical. And the question is rhetorical, because it’s good to be Tommy Fleetwood these days. Starting in late August, men’s pro golf felt as if it were Fleetwood — and everyone else. He won the PGA Tour’s Tour Championship. His European side won the Ryder Cup. In October, he won the DP World India Championship on the DP World Tour. This week at Pebble Beach, in his 2026 PGA Tour debut, Fleetwood is ranked fourth in the world, and everyone is whispering his name in major talk.

But pre-late August? There’s always a start to lists like these. And what came before the Tour Championship breakthrough had been a question that had lingered for a while: Would he ever win on the PGA Tour? One-hundred-sixty-three starts. One-hundred-sixty-three non-firsts. Some were painful, such as the one at last June’s Travelers Championship, where he led by a stroke after 71 holes; and the one at early August’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, where he led entering the final round. Maybe one day he’d win. But that wasn’t a given. His winless streak had surpassed the number of games played in a Major League Baseball season.

After each event, though, he answered everyone’s questions, and that gave everyone a look into just who this 35-year-old Englishman is: A nice guy. One with no excuses to be given. One with no reasons to be annoyed. All of it was undoubtedly endearing. LeBron James was even cheering for a Fleetwood W. But you know the saying about nice guys finishing last and all that, and maybe, on the road to victory, Tommy Lad became a bit of a — actually, we’ll let Rory McIlroy continue the thought.

“I would never say that Tommy questioned how much he wanted it,” McIlroy said last November. “But he’s always been so nice. So nice. And then I’m like, Is he too nice? Because you need to have just that little bit of edge or prick in you — whatever you want to call it. I know I have it, and I feel like that’s what you need to win. I think it’s harder for Tommy to feel that because of how empathetic he is.

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“But this year, I feel like he’s developed that little bit of edge.”

Maybe McIlroy’s right. Maybe being mean is the necessary means. And that being cutthroat results in no missed cuts. And that taking no prisoners leads to making no bogeys.

Then again, perhaps there’s room for playing like a kid.

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Fleetwood said that Wednesday afternoon. He’d been asked whether things, after 16 years as a pro, were starting to feel more like work. Or not a game. And Fleetwood said they hadn’t, and that he hoped they would never. “Yeah, I have my days where I feel it’s pretty rubbish, I don’t play well or the weather’s rubbish and I’m having a bad day or whatever it is,” he said. “I’m still, I think — yeah, it’s important to remember how much you wanted this life and how much you love it really.”

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And perhaps there’s room for welcoming questions that are typically unwelcome.

Fleetwood also said that Wednesday. He’d been asked whether his window to winning a major was now — and he said he was thankful for being asked that. “I always try and find the positives of whether it be, as you say, is this my window to win a major,” Fleetwood said. “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.”

None of that makes Fleetwood sound much like McIlroy’s P word, does it?

He could have done it. He could have gone edgy. He could have buzzed off his near-shoulder-length hair.

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It’s just that it would have been, well, annoying.

“I think it’s important to be yourself,” Fleetwood said. “I think anytime you’re trying to be something that you’re not, things get just like difficult. So again, I just try and be myself.

“If that’s what I am, if I’m like a really nice person, then that’s great, like I’m happy with that.”

Sounds kinda nice doesn’t it?

McIlroy be damned.

“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,” Fleetwood said. “I think I’ve always prided myself on being a good person, a nice guy, but I also love playing golf and competing.

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“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.”

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