Fleetwood's gutting runner-up a trend throughout wildly successful career

A combination of bad luck, poor execution, and formidable golf played by an opponent came back to bite Tommy Fleetwood on the 18th hole at TPC River Highlands on Sunday – a combination that has struck Fleetwood all too often throughout his PGA Tour career.

Keegan Bradley stormed back to snatch the Travelers Championship from Fleetwood on the 72nd hole, denying the Englishman his long-awaited first PGA Tour win. How it happened was just as painful as the result.

With Fleetwood (-15) leading the tournament and Bradley one shot behind heading to 18, both players striped their tee shots into the fairway, setting up a short approach to the final green. From 148 yards out, Fleetwood appeared to initially grab a 9-iron but changed to a wedge. That turned out to be costly as his approach came up well short, settling just off the front of the green and leaving him with a difficult two-putt for par. Bradley, hitting next from a touch up in the fairway, brought his approach in over a bunker to inside six feet, putting immense pressure on the tournament leader.

Fleetwood’s lag putt left much to be desired, settling a few inches beyond Bradley’s ball mark that not only gave him a longer putt, but let Bradley get a read from the same line on his next attempt.

Fleetwood missed his par save, Bradley poured in his birdie, and that was that.

“I'm upset now, I'm angry,” Fleetwood said Sunday. “When it calms down, look at the things that I did well, look at the things that I can learn from. So, I did plenty of things well enough this week to win, I didn't do that; it hurts. When it calms down, the most stupid thing to do and the worst thing to do would be make a week like this a hindrance to what you do going forwards.

“I obviously played great, I put myself in a great position, I was leading the tournament for 71 holes. I just want to make sure that I can put myself in this position as soon as possible again and try and correct what I did this time."

To make matters worse, Fleetwood’s second putt appeared to change course abruptly to the right on the way to the hole after rolling over an uneven part of the green. Whether the six-foot putt would have gone in had it not been impeded by a ball mark, a spike mark, or whatever it was is hard to say, but it certainly wasn’t the kind of luck Fleetwood needed.

Evidently, it’s the sort of luck Fleetwood has received throughout his PGA Tour career.

Fleetwood started on Tour in 2013 and has been incredibly successful, making the cut in 135 of the 159 events he’s played in. But of those 159 events, none have resulted in a win, and Sunday was far from the first time he’s been close.

He has 42 top 10s, 28 top fives, three third-place finishes and six runner-ups. In the Tour’s modern era, no player has ever had more top 10s without a victory as Brett Quigley sits next closest at 34. In majors he’s been as high as second at the U.S. Open and the Open Championship, was third at the Masters and fifth at the PGA Championship.

Oh, and remember Nick Taylor's incredible long-range putt to win the Canadian Open in 2023? That was Fleetwood going against Taylor in the playoff.
 

Interestingly, winning is something Fleetwood has done plenty of, just not on the PGA Tour. He has eight international victories, has been on two winning Ryder Cup European teams and has made more than $31 million on Tour, including north of $6 million this season and $1.76 million for Sunday’s second place finish. He's done just about everything but win on Tour, and he knows he's more than capable.

“I haven’t really been in a position where I’ve been in contention to worry about when my win might come [recently], but today was one of those days,” Fleetwood said Sunday.

“I led [through] 71 holes, and it didn’t happen. But in my mind I’ve won loads of PGA Tour events, I just haven’t done it in reality, and I’m sure that time will come if I keep working.”