Butch Harmon names the only win Tiger Woods had which meant more to him than Tommy Fleetwood’s Tour Championship victory

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While he will be the first to admit that he was not the best player across the season, Tommy Fleetwood ensured that there was a fitting finale to the FedEx Cup playoffs with his victory at the Tour Championship.

Tommy Fleetwood ended his long wait for a first win on the PGA Tour by winning the Tour Championship on Sunday. The result was all the sweeter due to the Englishman failing to get across the line at both the Travelers Championship and the FedEx St. Jude Championship.

After those close calls in recent months, there seemed to be plenty of questions about whether the 34-year-old was ever going to be able to get the job done on the PGA Tour.

Fleetwood’s talent is undeniable. He is sixth in the world rankings, while he will be a hugely important part of Europe’s Ryder Cup team for the fourth event running at Bethpage next month.

But winning an individual tournament stateside was proving to be extremely difficult for Fleetwood.

Butch Harmon suggests where Tommy Fleetwood’s Tour Championship triumph ranks for him

Thankfully, the wait is now over. And few were more delighted to see him win at East Lake than his coach Butch Harmon.

In fact, speaking on Son of a Butch, Harmon shared where Fleetwood’s victory ranks in the pantheon of amazing wins the legendary coach has had a hand in over the years.

“Tommy’s only 34 years old, he’s not that old. He’s got a huge career ahead of him. And I think this, and I said this to him yesterday when I was talking to him on the phone, this win right here is the start of your next career. And I think you’re going to see the confidence level really go up now,” he said.

“I’ll tell you an interesting story. My wife asked me after Tommy won, ‘where would you put this in the frame of all of the guys you’ve had success with when they won?’ I said, ‘well, the top two for me have always been Tiger winning his first Masters and Phil [Mickelson] winning the British Open because it took me a long time to convince him how to play links golf and he never thought he could win it. And then this one for Tommy’. So these are the top three that really, really stand out to me of guys that I helped that got it done. It took a while for Tommy to get it done, but I loved this stretch of three weeks. He kept saying after the first one, ‘yeah I know I gave it away’. ‘That’s okay, we’ve got two more to play’. Second one he played pretty good. He says, ‘how about we go and just win the last one?’ He says, ‘I’m there, I’m ready to do it’. And he just led wire to wire. It was unbelievable.”

The majors Tiger Woods won while Butch Harmon was his coach

Tiger Woods had just won his 33rd PGA Tour title when he confirmed that he had stopped working with Harmon in August 2002. Harmon had been his coach throughout his professional career up until that stage.

By that time, Woods had won eight major titles – more than half of the 49-year-old’s current tally of 15.

It is little surprise that the 1997 Masters holds a special place in Harmon’s heart, with Woods winning by 12 to announce himself as a superstar.

But it says something that his 15-shot win at the 2000 US Open, or at The Open Championship the following month may mean slightly less than Fleetwood’s win this past week.

However, it is clear that the victories which see a real breakthrough resonate with Harmon a lot more. And it seems that he is very optimistic that the Tour Championship is going to prove to be just the start for Fleetwood.