2026-01-18 10:31:58

Tommy Fleetwood is hoping to close the gap to Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy this year.

The English golfer is third in the world rankings but knows he has a lot to do if he is to chase down the two players ahead of him.

Fleetwood told reporters: “There is a clear gap, those two guys are definitely the best golfers in the world. I’m just one of the players in the pack behind that has some catching up to do there.

“But it’s an amazing challenge, if you think of it like that. Starting the year in a different position than I’ve been, world number three, and I think that’s very cool and very exciting to sort of have to think about trying to maintain the level that I’ve reached there, and I think that’s very, very exciting. And I think that’s the first thing to do.”

He continued: “Challenging the top two players in the world, I’m not going to say that that’s something that I’m not focused on and not interested in. Of course you are and you want to see where you can get to but that’s a long road ahead. That’s not going to happen next week or in a couple of months’ time.

“So I have to really just stick in, work on my game. I think it’s an amazing opportunity. I really think Scottie and Rory, they already are but definitely when we look back at this time, those two are going to be very high up there in the greatest players of all time.”

Fleetwood has been extremely consistent over the past five years and thinks it allowed him to break his PGA Tour victory drought by triumphing at the Tour Championship last year.

The golfer said: “I’ve always prided myself on trying to have my game as consistent as possible. I think that’s one of the things that’s shown over the years.

“I’ve had a lot of great results, and I think the big story was that I had not won on the PGA Tour. I managed to get that one done but I still felt like I wasn’t doing anything.

“The question is, what was different? Like it was an amazing run of form and played great but I never felt like I was doing anything that different. I was just playing. That’s the thing when you’re playing really well, you’re playing how you know you can play and that’s the key.”

Visit Bang Premier (main website)