PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

August 7, 2020

Tommy Fleetwood

Harding Park Golf Club

Flash Quotes

JOHN DEVER: Welcome back to the 2020 PGA Championship here at TPC Harding Park. We're pleased to be joined by Tommy Fleetwood. Thanks for being with us. He posted a second-round 64, which is tied for the lowest round of the championship here. He's currently 6-under par.

Tommy, something changed overnight for you. Was it the golf course changed? The conditions different? Or did you kick into gear?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: I think a bit of both. Like I say, yesterday we played in tough conditions yesterday afternoon, and I was 3-under through 11 holes, so I wasn't that far away.

I had a couple of bad holes, and then I felt like I played really well coming in and gained one on 17 and bogeyed the last. It was disappointing, but it was still all right.

But today I think I drove it really well, put it in the fairway around here and it makes a massive, massive difference, and really didn't give many shots away. I made sort of a -- you're always going to look at what you didn't do, made a poor-ish bogey from 2 on the fairway, but apart from that, any kind of up-and-down I got myself up-and-down, and any of the short testing putts I holed, and overall, that's obviously why you shoot 6-under

Yeah, today felt good. Felt like I worked my way into the round well and then gained momentum and then kept it going.

Q. Given the limited warmup in competitive situations, are you surprised that you're playing this well this week?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: No, not really. Expected to play this well first week back out. It's funny really, like when you've played poorly, you feel a long way off, and then you have a day like today and you obviously feel a lot better about it. I'm just taking each day as it comes. It's nice to -- I feel like I've prepared well last week and this week and felt way more in the groove of tournament golf.

Yeah, it's one day. I felt like I played pretty good yesterday, let it slip, today felt like I played well again, and I'll look at the positives and keep looking at what I can do to improve. But so far, so good. It was just nice to have a really good round going.

Q. Rory has talked for the last couple weeks how without crowds it's kind of hard to focus. Have you run into that at all?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Not particularly. I think I'm -- yeah, clearly I haven't been in contention on a Saturday or Sunday yet. I've watched it on TV and I feel like when I've watched guys when I was still at home when I was watching everybody, felt like they were going about their business in the same way, but clearly situations are different without crowds and without the energy and without whatever that feeling is you get from the crowds.

We'll see over the weekend how it is. It's clearly quiet, and it's strange. It's probably more strange when you think of a major without those crowds, and if you look at players' career-defining moments in majors or other events, then the crowd plays such a huge part in that, and you look at the closing shots on the video footage and there's massive crowds and everything, so that's different.

But we'll see. We're out here to play golf, and the tournaments are still on. They all still mean the same, so crowds or not, get on with it.

Q. Shinnecock, a long time ago. In your mind do you feel in a better place now to win a major, placed the same to win a major, not placed as well? What do you think?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Well, just the same. I'm the same person. I've got a little bit more experience. I think I was -- if you look at it, was I playing better at Shinnecock? Maybe. But that might only be because I've only played two weeks since coming back.

But you know, I feel the same, I guess, with a few more majors under my belt of experience. Hopefully they stand me in good stead over the weekend. Any time you're in contention for a major, it's an experience, and I feel like I've done it a few times, so every time you learn. Every time these weeks come about you just hope -- you prepare for it to be your week, and today was a great day. Got a weekend of golf left. We'll see.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about, a lot was made during COVID about you wanted to come over here and the quarantines and there was a lot of complications. You've got a handful of the guys that didn't come over to this tournament, particularly with Lee and Padraig and whatnot. Could you kind of talk about what went into your thinking? Was there ever a thought in your mind that you would not come to the major championship, and do you understand what those guys are doing? Do you sympathize with their plight?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, of course I think you assess the situation week in, week out at the moment and see how everybody feels, and I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to what anybody does. I mean, my -- what I did was I knew whenever I did come over to the States there was a two-week quarantine and I knew I was going to spend a long stretch.

You looked at the schedule and you had -- if you look at starting last week, there was a WGC, there's a major this week, then you're working your way into the Playoffs and then there's a U.S. Open, so there's a long stint of big events, and if all went well or if all goes well I'll be here for a while playing a lot.

With the quarantine it made it not impossible but very close to that where I would come and travel over and then go home and come back again. I was leaving it as late as possible to start playing just because then it would be a straight stretch in America.

All people can go on is reading the news and what the numbers are on a day-by-day basis and if they feel safe or happy to do so, and I think that's all people have done really.

For me being over here, it's obviously a very difficult situation the way the world is at the moment, but I think the Tour have done an amazing job in making it as safe as possible and making you feel as secure as possible.

All good on that end, but yeah, people can only make their own decisions, and like I said, there's no right or wrong.

Q. Going back to your conversation with the majors, you've had two runner-up finishes at majors. I'm just curious what you learned from those experiences, and how do these major tournaments help you play your best golf?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Well, majors are the toughest tests in general, and when you're playing up against the best players in the world and on the hardest golf courses, hopefully it's going to bring the best out of you. But it tests every single aspect of your game mentally and physically, and I've always enjoyed that.

I think going on majors in the past, I've been -- you can class it as lucky or unlucky, but I've played with quite a few of the winners of the last few majors, and it's always good to see what they do.

You're obviously concentrating on your own game but you see how the events pan out and you see how the guys go and win those events. That in your mind can only do you good, I guess, because you've watched it and seen it. Any time you're in contention it's just experience. You learn things about yourself and how those events unfold, like I say.

Like I say, experience you can't buy it, and I've been lucky enough to have some of that, and hopefully it stands me in good stead moving forward.

Q. I was going to ask a very similar question about your majors experience, so I'll ask you about the cardigans instead. I think Graeme McDowell was the last winner of a major wearing a cardigan. How do you rate your chances this weekend of following him?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Well, I don't know how many people have worn a cardigan in between, so I don't know what the ratio of wearing a cardigan and winning a major, so I'll do my best this week in cardigans for the rest of the week.

Hopefully the weather stays good and I don't need to worry. I was playing quite well today, so I thought I'll keep it on; I didn't want to test anything and just go down to a tee shirt. But thank you for the lovely comments.