three-stroke win at the Tour Championship<\/a> in Atlanta came in his 164th start on the PGA Tour. While determined to enjoy the moment, the 34-year-old from Southport has no plans to rest on his laurels. Fleetwood had been probed time and again about his series of near misses in the US.<\/p>\n\u201cThe guys that win the most are in contention so much, they\u2019re up there all the time,\u201d Fleetwood said. \u201cThat\u2019s where I want to be. I want to be up there. It\u2019s taken me a while to get this done, to get this first win. I\u2019ve never looked at it as just trying to win once. I\u2019ve always had the mindset that I want to win multiple. I want to win plenty. It\u2019s just that the first one seems to have taken a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next one might take a long time; I don\u2019t know. But I\u2019ve always had the mindset that I just want to be one of the best players in the world, I want to keep putting myself in contention. I always felt like it would probably happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt completes the story of the near misses and it has a crescendo to what has been building towards the back end of the season. But when I go home, I\u2019m just going to start practising again. I\u2019m going to start working again and I\u2019m going to look towards the next tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tommy Fleetwood with his caddie Ian Finnis. Photograph: Kevin C Cox\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Fleetwood is likely to move to sixth in the world. He collected a cheque for $10m at East Lake. Patrick Cantlay and Russell Henley were nudged into second place as Fleetwood\u2019s closing 68 left him on 18 under par. The Englishman\u2019s victory was a hugely popular one throughout golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s easy for anybody to say that they are resilient, that they bounce back, that they have fight,\u201d Fleetwood added. \u201cIt\u2019s different when you actually have to prove it. There\u2019s different types of mental strength. I\u2019ve clearly got things wrong in the dire moments of tournaments and I might have made the odd dodgy decision, might have put a bad swing on it. But I\u2019ve had to have mental strength in a different way. I\u2019ve had to be resilient in terms of putting myself back up there, getting myself back in that position, no matter how many times it doesn\u2019t go my way, no matter how many doubts might creep in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink the right things, say the right things to yourself, say the right things outwardly, and I am really pleased that I can be proof that if you do all the right things and you just keep going that it can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tiger Woods was amongst those to praise Fleetwood in the immediate aftermath of his victory. \u201cYour journey is a reminder that hard work, resilience and heart do pay off,\u201d Woods posted on social media. \u201cNo one deserves it more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Away from sporting superstars, Fleetwood has been identified by the public as a hugely relatable athlete. \u201cI\u2019ve always been very lucky that I make a great connection with people,\u201d Fleetwood said. \u201cIf I could give my kids one piece of advice, there\u2019s tons of advice but I always tell them to be a good person first and I\u2019ve always tried to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad always told me that, even when I was a young, aspiring amateur golfer, professional golfer, he always said person first, golfer second. You\u2019re a good person first. Whatever happens after that, you try to be a good golfer second. I\u2019ve always tried to be that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tommy Fleetwood insisted he is ready to write a fresh chapter of golfing success after ending his wait…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4106],"tags":[2826,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-371983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115088700718634870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}