LOS ANGELES — Tommy Fleetwood’s performance at the Los Angeles Country Club was just a day late, but it was incredibly impressive nonetheless.
Fleetwood notched two Eagles in his final round at Sunday afternoon’s US Open, making him the first person since 1990 to have a pair in a single round of the tournament. His second eagle of the day put him in the top five on the leaderboard as well, although the last pairing of Rickie Fowler and Wyndham Clark had not yet teeed off.
Fleetwood went into play with 2-overs in his third round on Sunday after an even par 70. That put him a full 12 shots behind Fowler and Clark and all but out of contention in his third major championship of the season.
But the 32-year-old Englishman played a near-perfect round of golf. He birdied the second hole and then skillfully hit the blind green on the par 4 sixth. His tee shot landed safely about 6 feet from the cup on the narrow green above the dense barranca and below a dangerous hill and bunker and set him up with an easy eagle putt.
This eagle, which put Fleetwood under par for the tournament, was only the third on that hole of the tournament.
Fleetwood’s run didn’t end there. He landed three more birdies on his next five holes. Fleetwood then managed to hit his second shot from the left rough onto the green on the par 5 14th hole. That triggered a 20-foot eagle putt, which he fired in the back of the cup to startle the crowd around him.
Although Fleetwood bogeyed on the 16th after landing in the fairway bunker, he still finished with a 7-of-63. That’s one of the best rounds anyone in this field has played all week, and just one shot below the tournament record set by Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele on Thursday. He narrowly missed a birdie putt on the 18th that would also have equaled the record. Fleetwood finished the week 5 under, which was good for a solo fifth place finish as he entered the clubhouse. He tied for fifth with Min Woo Lee and Rickie Fowler, five shots behind eventual winner Wyndham Clark.
Fleetwood struggled to pull off a big run ahead of Sunday in Los Angeles. He hit a 3-over in his first round and a 1-under on Friday while posting six birdies and five bogeys. But he is the first player in US Open history to have two rounds of 63 or better, which he did for the first time in 2018.
“It’s a nice little piece of history, of course,” Fleetwood said. “And you can be disappointed with what I didn’t catch today, but I think having that kind of thing and shooting multiple 63s in a major and I think kind of like bank-in days like today to be able to get in and know.” Being able to get rounds going and keep up your game on a big golf course and score low is really nice to have.”
Tommy Fleetwood is the first player since 1990 to score two Eagles in the same round at the US Open. (Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
Fleetwood is yet to win on the PGA Tour, despite coming incredibly close at last week’s RBC Canadian Open. Fleetwood lost a four-hole playoff in Toronto to Nick Taylor, who became the first Canadian to win the tournament in almost seven decades. Fleetwood has seven top-25 finishes this season, including a T5 run at the Wells Fargo Championship and a T3 finish at the Valspar Championship in March. Fleetwood also came close to winning the US Open in 2018, despite being knocked out by Brooks Keopka at Shinnecock Hills.
While almost certainly a long way from making any impact, Fleetwood’s attack on Sunday was a remarkable performance. It will also net him a much, much bigger paycheck at the end of the night.