August 26, 2013.England’s Tommy Fleetwood was elated as he won his maiden European Tour title on the first hole of a sudden-death play-off with Scotland’s Stephen Gallacher and Argentina’s Ricardo Gonzalez in the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.
For, 22-year-old from Southport, this win came as much surprise as others.
“It’s unbelievable. I have been up there a lot and not even had a top-five finish and all of a sudden, you come away with a win, Fleetwood said.
[highlight] The other two guys were a little unlucky with their putts and before you know it you have a four footer for the win,God knows how I made contact. It all seemed to unravel really quickly [/highlight]
“It just seemed to come a bit easier this week. I was nervous as hell on the first green but after that I was pretty calm. It was so tight, almost claustrophobic on the leader board; if you dropped a shot you went down ten places,” He added.
Fleetwood and Gonzalez began the day tied for the lead on 16 under but Gonzalez got off to the worst possible start when he lost a ball with a wild approach to the first and ran up a double-bogey six.
Gonzalez had putted down to five feet from just off the back of the green and when he also missed, Fleetwood was left to hole from four feet for a winning birdie and the first prize of €272,272.
Gallacher, due to a back injury, looked out of contention when he ran up a triple-bogey seven on the 11th in a roller-coaster final round, but bounced back with birdies at the 14th and 16th and then holed from 15 feet for an eagle on the last to complete a 67.
“The other two guys were a little unlucky with their putts and before you know it you have a four footer for the win,” said Fleetwood, who carded a closing 70.
“God knows how I made contact. It all seemed to unravel really quickly.”
Fleetwood was the youngest winner of the Challenge Tour in 2011 but only kept his card at the end of his rookie season on The European Tour thanks to a first top-ten finish of the year in the final event in South Africa.
