Tommy Fleetwood sets lofty goals after winning Race to Dubai
Sunday 19 November 2017 20:31, UK
Tommy Fleetwood set his sights on becoming world No 1 as he celebrated being crowned Race to Dubai champion following an enthralling final day of the European Tour season.
Fleetwood appeared certain to be overtaken in the standings by Justin Rose after he led the DP World Tour Championship with seven holes remaining, but Rose then stumbled with three bogeys in five holes to slip into a share of fourth place.
Rose needed to hole from the front fringe for eagle at the last to become European No 1 for the first time since 2007, but his putt drifted left of the hole to leave long-time leader Fleetwood as the Race to Dubai champion when he thought he had blown his chance.
Fleetwood began the final round just two shots behind overnight-leader Rose and made a confident birdie at the first, but the 26-year-old could not build on that start and struggled for consistency, particularly from tee to green.
He did manage birdies at the seventh and 11th, but he dropped shots at six, 10 and 12 before a bogey-bogey finish left him in a tie for 21st on 11 under and the destination of the Race to Dubai out of his hands.
But he ended the season on top of the standings following Rose's late collapse, and he said: "This is the biggest day of my career for sure. The emotions were difficult on me because I don't trust computers, so even when everything had finished, it was so difficult to get up or down.
"Then I felt for Justin a lot, because I saw him when he came in. I think how gracious he was shows a lot about his character. It's not sunk in yet. I had never done anything like this before, and it was actually quite an up-and-down week.
"The first day was poor and even the third day was up-and-down. And then today, obviously I didn't perform how I wanted to, but it just shows golf can be such a cruel or difficult game sometimes. I've just shot 14 under for two days and then couldn't get anything going at all.
"Justin had played unbelievable for three-and-a-half days and it was completely out of my hands after 12 or 13 holes. But it's a massive learning curve seeing that still anything can happen, and it's still definitely not sunk in."
Having come through a rollercoaster of emotions over the last month in which he saw his huge Race to Dubai lead whittled down to less than 135,000 points when Rose won back-to-back in China and Turkey, Fleetwood is now looking to break into the world's top 10 and higher over the next year.
"My ultimate goal in life is to be the best player in the world, that will always be the same," he added. "Whether I achieve it or not is another thing, but I'll always strive for that. I think this year has been a big year in terms of my career. You know, some of the performances, I have put myself on the world stage a bit more.
"When we sit down after this year, we'll make sure that the goals get high and lofty and that I push myself to achieve more. I've got a lot of experience in me after the last two, three years and I know that you can go down the wrong path very easily. But I think I've got people around me and myself included that know how to stay on the right path hopefully.
"I'll always have high expectations but we'll see where we can go. Like I said, the ultimate goal, and I think everybody in the profession should have that goal, is to try to be No 1 in the world."
