ABERDEEN STANDARD INVESTMENTS SCOTTISH OPEN

July 8, 2021

Tommy Fleetwood

The Renaissance Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Perfect day or near perfect day to play links golf, are you pleased with what you've delivered?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, definitely. I think conditions are beautiful. The wind picked up at one stage and then dropped again but it was a nice amount where you could use it at times. You can't ask for much of a better day, better conditions to score on. You've still got to do it but it feels good when you've made the most of a perfect day scoring and nice to get a good start.

Q. Your demeanor never seems to show you're frustrated or whatever, but the shot on 8, the lie might not have been the greatest but you made a birdie on 9 and that's sort of the way around a links course, you have to accept it, don't you?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, probably other times this year, like I felt good, like you stand up on the next hole and you just play the shot that's in front of you. We had a little bit of like commotion on the tee which didn't make it any easier.

But there's times this year where I might have -- it's a 4-iron that last paragraph three. It's not an easy shot. I might not have hit the best 4-iron and you finish bogey, bogey, rather than bogey, birdie and those are sometimes the momentum things and the things that make a big difference in your weeks and in your tournaments.

So it was really nice, bogey the first, which is our 10th hole and next hole made a birdie out of nowhere, like that, make a bogey and make a birdie, those bounce backs, you can push on from there, so they are really good.

Q. Is this in your DNA, the links? How much do you love this experience of links golf?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, I enjoy it. I'm from a links town. I grew up on the only parkland course in the town pretty much, but I've played a lot of links golf in my life and I do feel comfortable out there, whatever the conditions. You get a beautiful morning like today and it's a pleasure to be out there and at the same time, the harder the conditions get, kind of enjoy that in a sick way, as well, like the different skills that that requires.

Yeah, I've always felt like good and at home on links golf, and the at the end of the day, my favorite tournament in the world is always on a links course. Hopefully one day that can be mine.

Q. The word trending seems to be quite common now. Do you feel as though you're trending in the correct way and moving where you want to go?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, for sure.

Q. Location, location?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: First half on the sofa and second half in bed. It was a good game. It was like different to the Italy versus Spain game, a bit more rugged. It's not easy, is it. I don't think people sort of give enough credit to the guys how much pressure is on them to go and do it.

You know, it's great doing it as a team. It's great seeing the lads, what they look like afterwards, and the final, yeah, you never know.

Q. Do you have much contact with any of those guys?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, I speak to Harry a bit, Harry Kane. Yeah, so we speak a bit. So I've been in touch a little bit throughout tournament just saying good luck and stuff. I'm not exactly going to like bother him too much while he's at the Euros. We speak a bit, and like I said, it's good to see the lads doing well.

Q. Did you play with him in a Pro-Am?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Played with him at a Paddy Power golf day.

Q. Is he good?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Competitive but he didn't beat me.

Q. How many shots did you give him?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: I don't know it was like some three-hole -- then he wanted to carry on. He wanted a playoff. Went to penalties. I think he might beat me at penalties, though.

Q. Harry went through his own problems. Was that an inspiration to you?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, absolutely, I think you have a ton of examples of people in sport. When it's you and when it's your journey and it's your game, you don't see it from an outsider's perspective, you don't see it as simply. It's easy to give other people advice but not easy to give yourself advice or do the right things all the time. It's just so important to be doing the right things and knowing you're doing the right things. Sport ebbs and flows. Life ebbs and flows. I'm pretty sure my time will come again, whether it's now or next week or in a year's time, I'm pretty sure that I'll have my time again.

Q. Last year for the playoff here, do you feel this tournament owes you one?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: I don't think the tournament owes me one. I think I messed up all on my own. I clearly enjoyed the course last year. I clearly played well. And you come back and you sort of know what you did well, what maybe you didn't do well. Like I said, there are times last year I played so well; it's as good as I've played during whatever period of not the best results I've had is. Nice to get a good round going today and keep that sort of momentum on a golf course that I've played well on and hopefully I can keep it going.

But yeah, any time you come back to somewhere where you've played well, you kind of forget the bad stuff. I didn't win and Aaron won. He did great. It wasn't, like, my week. But you remember all the good stuff that you did and try to bring that to this week.