Tommy Fleetwood still fancies his chances

Tommy Fleetwood still fancies his chances for the tournament title as well as the Race to Dubai crown after bouncing back from a disappointing first round in the DP World Tour Championship with a second score of 65 at The Earth course on Friday.
After a not-so-happy 73 on first day, Fleetwood made the most of an early start on Friday to string up eight birdies and a bogey to get to six under to keep his rival in Race to Dubai, Justin Rose, on his toes. Fleetwood finished his second round even before his English compatriot had teed off.
With Rose coming to Jumeirah Golf Estate with two back-to-back wins in China and Turkey, Fleetwood is aware that only DP World Tour Championship title can guarantee that he can lay his hands on Harry Vardon Trophy.
"There's still a tournament to play for and there's still a Race to Dubai to play for," said Fleetwood at the end of his second round. "So there's two things going on and you've just got to concentrate on one, which is kind of each day as it comes and try and do your best in the tournament," he pointed out.
"But I needed a low one today for sort of both purposes, maybe. The only thing that you can control is the tournament in a way. Race to Dubai, I can't do anything about the maths or what Justin does or anything," he conceded.
"So the sole focus was to try to get back into this event today. I knew I needed a low one."
"It's all about how you react to stuff, isn't it?" he added. "Yesterday I was really happy with how I reacted early on because I got off to a bad start and then I got back into it and then I didn't really play great and missed a couple of putts.
"My swing felt a lot better, I was on the putting green until dark last night and today was just a much better day."
"You get the better conditions, the greens are perfect. I wouldn't say I hope it happens this time but the wind picks up in the afternoon. That time in the morning it was perfect golfing conditions and if you played well there was a score out there," he said about the advantage of playing in the early morning.
"I'm glad I've put my name up there, at least my name is somewhere now rather than the wrong end of the leaderboard. I'm glad within myself that I played like that today. It's nice to walk off feeling better," said Fleetwood before walking off to warm down on the putting green.
- sunilvaidya@khaleejtimes.com