Tommy Fleetwood Starts Eagle Eagle at 2019 WGC Mexico Championship
2 Min Read
Englishman shoots wild second-round 65 to get within four of the lead
Tommy Fleetwood opens with back-to-back eagles at WGC-Mexico
MEXICO CITY – Even the best players in the world couldn’t recall seeing anything like it when Tommy Fleetwood started eagle-eagle in his second round at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship at Club de Golf Chapultepec on Friday.
More amazing still: Neither hole was a par-5.
“I started birdie-birdie and was 2-down,” said playing partner Matt Kuchar (67, 9-under), “so I had some catching up to do.”
Said Henrik Stenson (73, 3-over), the third member of the group: “I’d never had a four-shot conversion on the first hole, but I hit it out of bounds and made double. And I had to make a five-footer on the second hole not be seven behind after two holes.”
MUST READS: Round 2, WGC-Mexico Championship
Even Fleetwood himself could only smile and shake his head at the incredible sequence of events as he became the first player since 2009 to start a round on the PGA TOUR with two consecutive eagles.
His 314-yard tee shot, with a 5-wood, settled to just inside 19 feet from the pin at the short, par-4 first hole, and he made the putt. Then, after a 346-yard drive at the second hole, he pitched in from 39 yards for his second straight 2.
Had he ever started eagle-eagle?
“No, no,” Fleetwood said after signing for a 65 that got him to 7-under and just four off the lead of Dustin Johnson. “It's not something that happens very often, is it? I'll take it, though. It's a good way to start, a good way to get a little bit of momentum.”
Fleetwood was second at the 2017 WGC-Mexico Championship in 2017, and T14 here last year. He’s currently T4. He admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that he had visions of making a third straight eagle as he stood on the tee at the 167-yard, par-3 third hole Friday.
“I thought like, hole-in-one, it's really going well,” he said with a laugh. “Stenson made a couple funny remarks, but like you're just getting on with your game.”
Fleetwood’s attempt at that hole-in-one? He missed the green to the right but saved par.
The eagle-eagle start was especially sweet, he said, because of the way the previous day ended, his opening-round 70 marred by bogeys on two of his last three holes on the front nine.
“I sort of played pretty well yesterday,” he said. “Hit a couple of bad shots towards the end and dropped, so it was nice to actually catapult myself up there early on (Friday) and kind of just go from there and kind of keep moving forward.”
Cameron Morfit began covering the PGA TOUR with Sports Illustrated in 1997, and after a long stretch at Golf Magazine and golf.com joined PGATOUR.COM as a Staff Writer in 2016. Follow Cameron Morfit on Twitter.