Because the winner wins twice.
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A change in the competitive format—some details of which Fleetwood admitted he was unaware until a few days ago—to a straight up tournament after several years of the tortured starting strokes configuration means that the winner at East Lake Golf Club also is the tour’s FedEx Cup champion.
That thought brought more than a smile to Fleetwood’s face. Wouldn’t this be the ultimate tournament to break through in America after so many close calls? While he demurred by insisting that he wouldn’t be “picky” where he won, the amiable Englishman ended up laughing at the notion of a victory in a tournament that offers $40 million in official prize money, the richest in golf.
“I think different tournaments have different meanings to you. There’s so many unbelievable tournaments. I’m not going to be picky about which one I choose to have as the first one,” Fleetwood said Tuesday at East Lake. “This one would be a good one. … I think it would be pretty funny if I won this week and then got the FedEx Cup as well. I think that would be funny.”
He laughed. Of course. Because it would be funny getting the last laugh. And lucrative. First place pays $10 million.
Although he owns eight international victories, Fleetwood, 34, has been stymied on U.S. soil with six runner-up and six third-place finishes. He added one of each by notching a T-2 at the Travelers and T-3 in Memphis. Twice he’s finished fourth among seven top-10s this season, including last week at the BMW Championship. He’s playing well. Just not well enough, with late mistakes costing him trophies.
Fleetwood is not the only player in the 30-man field without a win this year. Eight men are out of a title in 2025. But among them, only Jacob Bridgeman joins Fleetwood as a career non-winner—though he is far behind Fleetwood in near misses, experience and world ranking, coming in 64th to Fleetwood at No. 10.
What’s amazing about Fleetwood is that he maintains that all the disappointments come with an emotional asterisk. He gets disappointed and angry, but he refuses to let those emotions weigh him down.
“I work really hard on making sure that I make it all into a positive,” he said. “Of course, I’m not going to feed you lies and say, ‘Oh, Memphis I thought I did everything great, or Travelers I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Of course, I got things wrong down the stretch, and it didn’t happen for me. But you just learn from those experiences. … I would rather you be questioning me about not finishing tournaments off than not questioning me at all about anything.
“Best-case scenario [is] coming down the stretch at East Lake with a chance to win. Whether I get it right or not, whether it happens or not, whether someone plays better or not, I’ll talk about that at the time, but I would love to get there and give myself that chance again.”
