THE 153RD OPEN

July 17, 2025

Tommy Fleetwood

Mixed Zone

Q. How would you reflect on your day?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: It wasn't disastrous, so that was one thing. Yeah, I sort of played the first few okay, sort of -- I think everything that kind of -- I didn't get any breaks, that was for sure. Everything that kind of could go wrong sort of went wrong, short of a little bit in crosswinds at times off the tee. It wasn't easy.

Look, the best way to look at it is the lead is still at 4-under, so it wasn't that bad of a day. It was just a struggle and I would have loved to have had a better start.

Q. You're not out of it, so something to build off hopefully tomorrow?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, get out tomorrow, hopefully get a good start really and just get some momentum because I had none today. Yeah, that would be great really because I do think -- there's the odd chance out there that if you're going to shoot a score you've got to take.

A couple of shots here and there could have gone either way. I feel like I putted well on that back nine to stay in it, where I felt like it was really difficult, and obviously didn't really have my game.

Yeah, look at the positive side of it, six behind. If I can get closer than that tomorrow, then you're still in it.

Q. How hard is it to stay patient when there's no momentum?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, it's tough. Like I say, majors, The Open, they're all a battle of the mind as well. Managing your own expectations, managing how much it means to you, the difficulty of the golf course. Yeah, that's why they're majors. That's why they're the toughest tests. Today was a difficult day in terms of just -- I never really had an opportunity to sort of get my score back, if you like. I made a good par on 11, and then 12 felt like I hit a pretty good tee shot. Them bunkers are -- I seen too many bunkers today really, but them bunkers are just sucking you in on that right side, and then good pitch shot, hit a good putt, leave it in the jaws. Things like that. You need kind of them to happen.

But at the same time, look at the putts that I holed on I think 13, 14, crosswind on 15 but then 16 and 17, so big putts, so be happy with that.

Q. There was some talk about a bunker you were in on 5 that hadn't been raked?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, it wasn't a great -- yeah, it wasn't a great rake job. I probably could have managed it -- first thing is I was not very happy to be in there. That was the first thing, so that's my fault.

But yeah, it wasn't -- like I say, when things are going -- things weren't going well. It was like in somebody's hitting mark that hadn't really been raked great. I probably could have managed it better. I still felt like I could hit -- I tried to hit what I thought was the right shot, like kind of duff something because I knew I couldn't get any sort of strike perched on the ball so I tried to duff it, but then you've got to get the height as well. So that was a bit harsh.

Q. Would it be nice to see the bunker rakers back do you think?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: That would be handy. The amount that I hit in them today, I'm sure I was probably asking for the bunker rakers back today.

Q. There's some concern that a message wasn't related to the caddies around raking the bunkers, that there's been a policy change?

TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, I don't remember when it changed actually. Was it really? They've always had bunker rakers until this week? I thought so. I thought that was odd.

I mean, still, you just rake the bunkers, right? It's part of the game.

You don't know what's gone on before. I'm not going to hold it against anyone too much. You don't know what was going on, you don't know what was happening in that moment. I'm not going to get angry about anyone where you don't know what's happening, but it wasn't great, and yeah, bunker rakers would have been nice.