Fairways and Greens: Golf’s Mr. Congeniality proves that good guys don’t always finish last

I feature no qualms in admitting that I am a immense Tommy Fleetwood devotee. And no. I did non all of a sudden decide to jump on the bandwagon after his brilliant win on Sunday at the Tour Championship.

It happened on a magnificent Saturday afternoon during the 2017 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. Tommy was yet to win his second DP World Tour title, but playing alongside Martin Kaymer, the uncrowned ‘King of Abu Dhabi’ and Spaniard Rafa Cabrera-Bello, he was in contention at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club course.

Then just 25, he had opened with two successive rounds of 67s, but Saturday wasn’t going as per his plans. Others were catching up as he walked to the par-3 15th hole, just one-under for the round and now a couple behind a surging Dustin Johnson.

In those days, the tournament used to have one of the finest partnerships with a junior development programme – the Abu Dhabi HSBC Future Falcons. That year, the Future Falcons managed a dream opportunity for the youngsters – it chose 15 of them, through a separate competition, to hit a tee shot on the 15th hole alongside the professionals. This was during the championship round itself and live on the international TV feed.

The round was getting frustrating for Tommy, but you’d never know from his calm exterior. However, he visibly perked up seeing the young man waiting for his group to reach the tee. The kid then managed to hit a good shot on to the green as well.

Now, most professional golfers are lovely human beings, and they do enjoy interacting with kids and motivating them. So, all of them would shake hands, talk to them and be generally nice.

Not Tommy though. You needed to be there to see how different his interaction was. He smiled, spoke, high-fived and then walked the entire length of 177 yards with his hands on the kid’s shoulder and talking and laughing as if two long-lost friends suddenly bumped into each other.

After he won the following day, I asked Tommy about the incident. In his own inimitable style, he managed to make it all about the kid.

“If there’s somebody there, I am going to chat to them. I wasn’t going to ignore a little kid, and he was quite funny, as well. I just wanted to talk to him down the hole,” said Fleetwood.

“I felt good about it and I felt kind of relaxed. Me and Ian (Finnis, his caddie and long-time friend) make little goals, and one of them this week was to smile. So, it worked. I’m going to use this in future tournaments.”

When he won at East Lake – his first PGA Tour win after 164 starts and 30 top-5 finishes – one could feel the kind of support pouring out for him from all over the world. It led to congratulatory tweets from Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Caitlin Clark, Carlos Alcaraz, among others. But more than anything else, what stood out was the warmth with which the social media, which can be vitriolic even to saints, and the spectators (majority of them being American, with the highly-divisive Ryder Cup coming up next month) embraced the Englishman.

After the win, Tommy was asked if he knew why he was loved so much.

“I’ve always been very lucky that I make a great connection with people. If I could give my kids one piece of advice, I always tell them to be a good person first, and I’ve always tried to do that,” he said.

“My dad always told me that, even when I was a young, aspiring amateur golfer, professional golfer, he always said ‘person first, golfer second’. You’re a good person first. Whatever happens after that, you try to be a good golfer second. I’ve always tried to be that.”

‘Person first’. Great advice that. It is something that can win you most popularity contests. No wonder Tommy is golf’s Mr Congeniality.

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