Tommy Fleetwood made a really solid start to the Valero Texas Open on Thursday with a fine round of four under par 68.
The Englishman made five birdies and just one bogey around TPC San Antonio, and he is sitting four shots adrift of the Valero Texas Open first round leader Keith Mitchell
Incredibly, Tommy Fleetwood is still searching for his first ever PGA Tour win.
He does, of course, have seven DP World Tour titles to his name. He has been a part of three Ryder Cup teams, two of which were successful, and has seven top-five finishes in major championships.
Tommy Fleetwood is currently outside the automatic qualification spots for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Park later this year.
A win here would obviously do the 34-year-old the world of good.
Tommy Fleetwood speaks after Valero Texas Open opening round
Fleetwood was obviously delighted with his opening round out in Texas on Thursday.
The Englishman was very tidy in all departments. He found eight out of 14 fairways, 12 out of 18 greens and made five out of six up-and-downs (PGA Tour website).
He’ll now be looking to kick on and post another good score on Friday.
Fleetwood responded when asked about the conditions at TPC San Antonio:
“It got hot, it’s amazing how quickly it heats up. We had nice conditions really first thing out, it was kind of overcast. Greens were still taking a bit of a big bounce early, but greens were perfect.
“You know, wind was kind of picking up and down a little bit, but it sort of felt like nice scoring conditions if you were going to get it around here. Yeah, nice to make the most of what felt like kind of a calm-ish morning.“
Tommy Fleetwood lifts lid on Masters preparation
Nothing beats playing competitively, as far as Tommy is concerned.
He explained how he’s very much in ‘game-mode’ right now in the lead-up to the 89th Masters next week.
“You know, my reason of being here is just to be in kind of playing mode. At the same time, it’s a great tournament and obviously PGA event and it’s very important. So I feel like I want to be going into the Masters feeling like I’ve played, but so that means I don’t really think about the Masters, focus on this week, do all the things that I need to prepare week in and week out. Then yeah, Masters comes, I’ll start focusing on that.“
Fleetwood then responded when asked about the current state of his game:
“Yeah, I felt pretty good actually. Sort of struggled a bit in practice in finding my swing, just doing a lot of work on that. But today felt good, chipped well, could have been a couple better, could have been a couple worse, but I think yeah, 4 under out there is a good score.“
It’s all looking good for the popular Englishman ahead of next week’s eagerly anticipated Masters tournament at Augusta National.
And a win for Tommy Fleetwood at the Valero Texas Open would be the ideal way for him to head across America to Georgia on Monday.
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