PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | This is the story of Tommy Fleetwood’s passage over 1,100 yards of glorious Florida turf, grass that is greener than an avocado, more treacherous than a bag of snakes. It is a story worth telling because Fleetwood’s play over the last three holes at TPC Sawgrass in the first round of the Players Championship was compelling and imperious – even by the standards of the man ranked the third best golfer in the world. It made a notoriously difficult game look easy.
Fleetwood took only eight strokes to cover the par-5 16th, the par-3 17th – perhaps the most famous and most photographed short hole in golf – and the par-4 18th. Rickie Fowler took eight strokes on the same holes when he won the 2015 Players, and when Craig Perks triumphed in the same event 24 years ago his nine strokes over these three holes included two chip-ins and only one putt.
For the 35 minutes it lasted it was a privilege to watch Fleetwood manoeuvre his way around these pesky holes in the company of one of golf’s big dogs, Justin Thomas, and an even bigger dog, perhaps the biggest, Scottie Scheffler. For three holes, Fleetwood’s golf was otherworldly. If there had been water between the 18th green and the next tee, he could have walked on it.
On the 16th (his seventh), Fleetwood was level par for the day. There had been no hint to this point of what was about to unfold which is why what did unfold was all the more exciting. Hunting a birdie on this long hole, Fleetwood used some body English on the tee to persuade his ball not to go into the rough close to the trees on the left of the fairway. The body English worked. After a 300-yard drive he had 235 yards to the flagstick.
Now he had to make a decision: Would he go for glory and with it the attendant risk? Or would he play safe and hit a shot that would leave himself a pitching distance to the flag?
Silly question. Fleetwood went for glory, aiming at the putting surface and trusting his ball striking to make sure his ball would not be blown off course by the wind coming across the fairway. He gripped well down the shaft of a metal wood, and the abrupt end of his often sawn-off finish to his swing was even more sawn-off than usual.
The ball screamed away into the distance untroubled by the wind, landed on a green that must have looked quite small from where Fleetwood was standing in the fairway and rolled to 28 feet from the flagstick. The putt began left of its target, moving slowly to the right before dropping into the hole for an eagle.
What was Fleetwood thinking as he walked to the 17th tee? He was surely elated after he had gone 2-under par on one hole but he would not have been the professional he is if he was not already pondering the difficulty of the short hole he was about to face. He made it look easy. His tee shot thudded into the putting surface and rolled back a few feet. That putt was no problem either. If Fleetwood could hole a 28-footer on the previous green, he could hole a 24-footer on the penultimate green.
The 18th is a model finishing hole, a par-4 of 462 yards that has a lake all up the left side. The tournament organisers have a propensity to put the flagstick as near to the left of the green, and thus the water, as they dare. Here’s a suggestion. Put a mermaid on a rock in the middle of the lake and she could lure golfers to hit their golf balls into the water.
Accuracy off the tee is the watchword on this hole. Go too close to the left-hand side of the curving fairway and a ball can dribble into the lake. Go too far right and a ball will end up among trees.
Fleetwood’s tee shot with a 3-wood split the fairway. What to do now? Would he go for the wider, safer part of the green or the 21-foot sliver of grass between the flagstick and the lake? His approach shot was as brave as could be, ending not much more than twice his own body length from the lake. Seeing it land on the green and knowing how brave a shot it was, Scheffler gave Fleetwood a thumbs-up before the Englishman holed out for another birdie.
After these three holes, the muse deserted Fleetwood. He had a 10-foot putt for a birdie on the first (he had started on the 10th), a distance that had been well within his compass on the three previous holes but was unattainable now. Having been 4-under for three difficult holes, he ended the day 3-under, 69, for 18. It was a good but not great day’s golf.
Nevertheless, it had been a privilege to watch him over the 16th, 17th and 18th. On the Stadium course he had played golf worthy of being performed in a stadium.
“Could he have played those three holes better?” he was asked. “I guess I could have holed them,” meaning his approaches, he replied.