For all the understandable excitement and celebration that came with Keegan Bradley’s storybook victory at the Travelers Championship, there stood Tommy Fleetwood in the jet wash of noise spilling down onto the 18th green at TPC River Highlands Sunday afternoon, left to shake the hand of another player who did what he could not.
The finish to the Travelers Championship may have been the best on tour this year outside of the Masters and a big part of that was the bittersweet element to Bradley’s victory in an event he values more than any outside the majors and Fleetwood’s latest near-miss, set against his so-far Sisyphian quest to win a PGA Tour event.
It was golf’s version of one man’s ceiling being another man’s floor.
As Fleetwood stood on the 16th tee with a two-stroke lead, it looked and felt like his moment had finally arrived.
Three holes later, Fleetwood was left to watch Bradley make a slightly shorter version of the putt he missed on the 18th hole, the tournament flipping in the process. Fleetwood dropped his head for a moment, absorbing the disappointment.
In the midst of his joy, Bradley thought of Fleetwood.
“I know how hard it must be for him. He’s just an unbelievable player, and he’s fighting so hard to get his first win. It’s a weird thing to be on the other side of that. I do feel bad for him, but I got to go out and do what I need to do,” Bradley said Sunday evening.
While Bradley posed for photographs with the trophy, Fleetwood was left to pack up his belongings and his feelings.
He took a few questions from the media when it would have been easy for him to follow a recent trend and duck out silently. The image of the Fleetwood family hug that made the rounds on social media encapsulated the moment.
Fleetwood is among the game’s most popular players and his efforts to win on the PGA Tour have become an unwanted but unavoidable identifying mark, much like his long hair.
“It’s a crappy way to finish. Like, 16 and 18, just disappointing and sort of hitting pretty decent shots, really, that left myself with work to do and didn’t clean it up.” – Tommy Fleetwood
To his credit, Fleetwood hasn’t pushed back about the label of being the best player without a PGA Tour win. Instead, he has acknowledged it and found motivation in it, even joking about it Saturday evening when he had a three-stroke lead with 18 holes remaining.
“I’m on top of a lot of stat lines for people that haven’t won on the PGA Tour, so to always to be a No. 1 at something is always nice,” Fleetwood said.
Fleetwood was shaky early in the final round, making three bogeys in his first four holes to allow a crowd of contenders to gather around him. Midway through the round, Fleetwood seemed to find his rhythm and looked in control as the tournament turned toward the dynamic finishing stretch at River Highlands.
When Fleetwood bogeyed the par-3 16th, it was as if the same thought crossed many minds – uh-oh.
Fleetwood holed a solid par putt at 17 to keep his one-stroke lead but a poor club choice on his approach shot into the 18th green led to the three-putt from the fringe that coincided with Bradley hitting the hero shot into the final green.
“It’s a crappy way to finish,” Fleetwood said. “Like, 16 and 18, just disappointing and sort of hitting pretty decent shots, really, that left myself with work to do and didn’t clean it up.”
It was Fleetwood’s 42nd top-10 finish on tour without a victory, easily the most since 1983. He has finished second six times on the PGA Tour and he has eight international victories.
The Travelers Championship appeared to be Fleetwood’s breakthrough moment. Instead, it became another soul-testing result. While admitting he wanted to find a quiet place to sulk for a while on Sunday evening, Fleetwood insisted he can use the experience to be better the next time.
“I haven’t been in this position all year, so it’s been awhile, felt like I did a lot of good things, but there was things that I definitely can do better, and I have to do better. So I did plenty of things well enough this week to win, I didn’t do that, it hurts,” Fleetwood said Sunday.
“When it calms down, the most stupid thing to do and the worse thing to do would be make a week like this a hindrance to what you do going forwards. I obviously played great, I put myself in a great position, I was leading the tournament for 71 holes. I just want to make sure that I can put myself in this position as soon as possible again and try and correct what I did this time.”