Thoughts on Tommy Fleetwood's Triumph, the Tour Championship, and FedEx Cup

1. As far as competitive drama goes, Sunday was probably the worst of the three PGA Tour FedEx Cup Playoffs events. The actual competition did not materialize with many highs, lows, or shifts.

2. What it did have was a constant tension and narrative thanks to Tommy Fleetwood, the hard-luck loser of PGA Tour events (you may have heard, he’s won things in other places). Fleetwood has had an exceptional season, even by his standards, leveling up with consistency. But he had not won.

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3. So these were the stakes and that was the story: clear and easy. The anxiety persisted throughout the brisker two-ball round at East Lake. It provoked you to maybe watch through your fingers over your face as he stood on the 15th tee, the challenging par-3 to essentially an island green. He stood there for what felt like an eternity of indecision, barely making a move.

4. The silence lingered until Bones, on the tee and rarely prone to hyperbole or treacle, emphatically cut in with a, “Man, it is tense out here,” to convey the feeling in the air as Fleetwood stared across the water to the green where he’d made double bogey the prior day. Scottie Scheffler had just found the same water for his own double, eliminating maybe the most looming threat to Fleetwood.

5. He would pull a 5-iron, keep it dry, and make what at the time felt like a “good” bogey four on the nightmare hole. We kept peering through our fingers until he was safely on the 18th green without incident. He did not play his best, but he got it done. Birdies at Nos. 12 and 13 from some precise wedges seemed to be the boost that was needed. But we’d also seen that movie before.

6. In the debates in the strokes gained cross tabs, Ryder Cup spots, legacy rankings, and Tour mismanagement, we can sometimes forget why we watch. There was context to the Tommy story that made those moments like the one on the 15th tee so gripping. Tommy had crashed and burned. He seems almost universally loved and has been fully branded as one of the good guys. The competition never materialized much – Scottie spit the bit, Cantlay waggled off the stage – but there was texture to the Fleetwood character, his story, and his effort. He had fallen on his face, given some great color to the pain, and came back again.

7. Caitlin Clark, Tiger Woods, and LeBron James tweeted their admiration. Major media figures like Bill Simmons and PFT Commenter watched and rooted. Justin Rose filmed it from behind the green like a proud sports parent whose kid is at the plate. My mom sent me a text about how happy she was he’d won. That many casuals haven’t texted me about the Tour in a while. The Fleetwood story broke through the golf ecosystem containment mounding and was a classic sports triumph.

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8. Is Fleetwood winning the Tour Championship and, by extension, the FedEx Cup, representative of the pro golf season? No, of course not. At one point, Dan Hicks went to commercial saying that the “entire FedEx Cup season has built to this.” It was an important qualifier to this separate, somewhat significant (depending on who you ask) Cup contest. The winless Fleetwood battling the cantankerous Cantlay down the stretch represents little about the highlights of this season for the ages that included an 11-year burst of emotion for a historic grand slam and the best player of his era further separating and dominating in a Tiger-like way.

9. That’s always been a tricky obstacle course to navigate, but one new CEO Brian Rolapp is aware of, as well. Last week in Atlanta, he stated that “the regular season and postseason should be connected in a way that builds towards a Tour Championship in a way that all sports fans can understand,” while also pondering, “How do you actually drive a competitive schedule where every event matters, that is connected to a postseason?” Does Tommy winning achieve or answer this?

10. Rolapp also repeatedly emphasized his focus on the product, a word we’ve heard a lot in recent years. The Tour Championship at East Lake product delivered four days of meh. It was four days of preferred lies, dartboard surfaces, mishit drivers that sail over the trouble and into the fairway, and drops that became “place it softly as you can,” including a fortunate one for Fleetwood at the eighth hole. The “Product” report card got much lower marks than the Sunday winner. Every time you looked up, the ball was constantly in players’ hands, and scores sat in the mid-60s. The 15th hole became a point of fascination, and to a lesser extent, the eighth. But the course, and the conditions this year, have not done much to elevate the product of the Tour Championship. The goodness of Tommy and the greatness of his story provided some nice deodorant. It was a great result to close out the season.