Telfer's Thought's 11.8.25

An unfortunate Americanism, favoured for some years now especially by American television commentators when summarising a competitor’s career, is to list numerically their losses alongside the number of events they’ve played in. It is unflattering and can portray a player in a pretty brutal light. “Well, that’s another failure for Joe Bloggs, he’s now O and 10”, the big O indicating how this poor fellow is still without a win.

As fate should have it, Tommy Fleetwood, the eminently likeable and talented English golfer, has now played 43 tournaments on the USPGA Tour but hasn’t posted a win. So sure as hell, every week when any shots of Fleetwood appear on the screen, out comes the big O comparison. It was fair dripping out of the commentators’ mouths this week after Fleetwood, who looked on the verge of breaking his drought when he led the field with just a couple of holes to go at the St Jude Classic in Memphis, hit a couple of loose shots near the end of his round. That saw him finish tied with JJ Spaun, who ultimately went on to win the sudden death play-off and poor old Tommy is now universally known around the golfing world as Mr O/43. This is terribly unfair on Fleetwood, who for a number of years now has ranked in and around the world’s top 10 golfers (he’s currently ranked 13).

Despite his heartbreaking loss to JJ Spaun, Fleetwood happily agreed to a television interview on the 18th green, just minutes after his loss, which must have been hurting him big-time at that moment. He did it, as he always does, with humour and dignity, content to answer what it’s like to have been so close so many times but still going home without the bacon.

Ironically, Ryan Fox playing in this same tournament finished in a tie for 50th place, yet pleased, I suspect, to know he’s still picked up enough FedEx Cup points to get him into the field for this week’s second round. The field for this event has only 50 starters.

Ryan’s main focus this week, I imagine, is to get that ranking from 36th up to 30th place. To achieve this he’ll probably have to finish 10th or better. If he can get inside the top 30 he will then progress to the FedEx Cup final the following week in Atlanta. This small field of 30 will split something in the order of $US20 million.