DUBAI INVITATIONAL

January 10, 2024

Tommy Fleetwood

Dubai Creek Resort

Quick Quotes

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Q. You eight and a half thousand miles away in Hawai'i on Sunday. That's a lot of time zones to be crossing. How you feeling?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Thought it was further. Feeling fine. Actually I was up early this morning, just getting straight back into the swing of things. Part of the job is to travel and everything, and last week was an event that I've always wanted to play. You know, being such a long time, Kapalua is significant, so it was great to get a chance to play that.

Now back home in Dubai and off we go again.

Q. Takes some players a number of events to feel like they can get into tournament play again. You've won your first start of the year twice and finished second on another occasion. What's been the secret to hitting the ground running on those occasions?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: I like that golf course. It was nice to me. It was always on the same golf course when we started.

It can go either way. I've started seasons well and I've started seasons poorly. I think -- I suppose with the way the world of golf is, every tournament is important. But at the same time, win, come last, come middle of the pack, I think whatever you do in those events, you've still got to carry on the next week and the week after that and keep going the rest of the season.

Take confidence if you do start well, and if you don't, just keep working your way into the season. So I try not to putt too much significance on the start of the year but still it's all better to start good than bad.

Q. Your thoughts on the new event and its format?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, very cool. It's great. Abdullah has put so much effort into this and brought another event into the Middle East and the Creek, which we've not played a tournament here for a very long time. I've never played a tournament here, that's for sure.

But it's nice, I think everybody loves starting the year in Dubai. Abu Dhabi has moved to the back end of the year, so adding another event to take that place for the one just before the Desert Classic I think is great.

It's always a great atmosphere out here. Everybody is start being the year and weather is great and it's always got a lot of meaning to everybody. Everybody starts sort of the calendar year, if you like, working, practising hard, playing tournaments. It always has a nice feeling to it at the start of the year.

Q. You ended the year 14th on the World Ranking and that's your highest at the end of the year since 2019. How much encouragement does that giving you going into the new season that you seem to be headed in very much the right direction?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, I played really well last year, particularly from like early summer onwards, late spring. I think my consistency levels were great. Like most people in the world of golf, I don't win any where near as much as I would like, so you're always looking to that missing piece that would lead to you more victories.

But overall in terms of the depths of my performances throughout the year, I was very, very pleased, and yeah, to finish the World Ranking in a high place again and knocking on the door of that top 10 and hopefully going further feels great.

And just carry on. Carry on with that consistency and doing the right things and try and kick on. It's been a nice break.

Obviously one of the issues with that is that when you have so much momentum and you stop, you don't want to stop. There are times when you do want to stop, and times when you don't, but happy to get going again.