Tommy Fleetwood

We caught up with one of golf’s rising stars during a visit to his beloved Goodison earlier this month to talk Masters debuts, this summer’s Open at ‘home’ course Birkdale and the challenges of following the Blues on the PGA European Tour...

- Rob Urbani

Augusta National to Goodison Park, via a few days back at his family home in Southport. That was the itinerary for local star golfer Tommy Fleetwood leading up to Everton’s fixture against Burnley a fortnight ago.

The Blues invited Fleetwood to the last home game as a special guest, less than a week after the world number 29 had competed at his first Masters.

Fleetwood is enjoying his best year as a professional. He produced a stunning final round 63 to earn a play-off at last week’s Shenzhen International in China, losing out to long-time leader Bernd Wiesberger. This came three months after securing the biggest win of his career, seeing off top-ranked Dustin Johnson to claim the prestigious Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

Fleetwood’s job takes him all over the world but whenever he is back on British shores and there’s a rare chance to see his beloved Blues in action, he doesn’t turn the offer down.

“You travel to play in America and the games are on of a morning but you fly the other way and the matches are on really late of an evening,” he explains. “It is difficult to keep tabs and sometimes you’ve just got to wake up and see how we’ve got on!

“Football is one of the biggest subjects out there for us golfers because there are so many English lads on the tour. We always talk about the results of our teams, especially on a Sunday. You just hope that you are the one who can brag!