There have been plenty of day-after heartbreak in the career of Tommy Fleetwood, but the PGA Tour veteran finally got to wake up a champion after taking home the 2025 Tour Championship.
The Englishman removed himself from the top of the list of best players to never win when he took down the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. A day later, as it all started to set in, Fleetwood celebrated the win once more with a perfect social media post.
Tommy Fleetwood: ‘I Always Had Belief’
Fleetwood has been one of the Tour’s most talented players for a long time. Despite that distinction for most of his career, it was borderline perplexing as to why he couldn’t get a win on the PGA Tour. At some point, it was worth wondering whether the scar tissue from the previous failures was going to be too much to overcome.
Instead, Fleetwood made an emphatic statement at the 30-man Tour Championship. He did just enough to hold off a star-studded field in the final round to earn himself a $10 million check, and more importantly, the long-awaited distinction of being a PGA Tour winner.
“I always sort of had belief in myself that you keep knocking on the door, you keep putting yourself up there, you keep playing well, keep learning from all the near misses and keep putting that into action in the next tournament or the next tournament or the next time you get a chance, see what is going to happen,” Fleetwood told reporters in an emotional post-round press conference.
“The people that win the most — I always feel like if you look at what the best players do and try and copy it — whether you’re as good as them or not is a different story, but if you watch what they do and you copy them as much as possible, I think that’s a good way to go.”
Fleetwood Celebrated by His Peers for Tour Championship Win
While the merits of winning the Tour Championship — a 30-man field at the end of a three-week playoff sprint — can be debated, there’s no arguing Fleetwood hasn’t played sensational golf leading up to his win.
Longtime golf journalist Kyle Porter pointed out that Fleetwood’s finish at East Lake was the third time he finished better than Scottie Scheffler this season. That stat says more about Scheffler than anything else, of course, but it’s not like Fleetwood made his money — and his win — beating up on nobodies in the Tour’s opposite-field events.
Defeated Scottie 4 times — 0 golfers 3 times — Fleetwood, Rose 2 times — Spaun, Henley, Rory 1 time — 25 golfers 0 times — everyone else in pro golf
There’s also no doubting how much respect Fleetwood has among his peers. A handful of players either greeted Fleetwood near the 18th green and/or sent congratulatory social media messages after the final putt dropped.
That included Tiger Woods, whose ability to win golf tournaments is second to none in the history of the sport. That Woods admires Fleetwood for his resiliency (and doesn’t admonish him for all the close calls) is one of the strongest reflections of his reputation within the sport.
Tommy Fleetwood Spikes Football With Message After First PGA Tour Win