If the Match Play was medal play
By Bill Felber
The Tommy Fleetwood miracle
Van Rooyen was actually only one of two players top advance to the bracket round despite having the worst medal play scores in their group. In Group 5, Tommy Fleetwood accomplished the same unlikely result. And he did it in much the same manner.
On Wednesday, Fleetwood somehow escaped his match with Si Woo Kim with a tie despite shooting two strokes worse than Kim under medal play rules. Fleetwood lost the first hole with a double bogey to Kim’s par, then dumped his approach into the water in front of the 13th green, a result that likely would have given him a bogey to Kim’s birdie.
Still the match was only squared at that point, and it ended that way when Fleetwood nailed a 10-foot birdie putt on the final hole.
On Thursday, Fleetwood had the good fortune to cross paths with Antoine Rozner. One day earlier Rozner had shot 67 in defeating group favorite Bryson DeChambeau. Fleetwood offset three birdies with two bogeys, but breezed home 4 and 3 when Rozner bogeyed four of his 15 holes.
Through two rounds Fleetwood had effectively taken 141 strokes, three more than DeChambeau and two more than Kim. Yet he could win the group by defeating DeChambeau head-to-head.
When Fleetwood butchered the par 3 11th, dumping two balls into the pond fronting the green, the two were effectively even in stroke play, both having effectively taken 44 strokes to that point. By match play scoring, however, Fleetwood remained two up. Still a hole ahead through 15, he matched DeChambeau to the finish and claimed the group title.
In a stroke play event he would have finished a distant last in the group at 213, six behind Kim, five behind Rozner and four behind DeChambeau.