Tommy Fleetwood shoots 64 to go within touching distance of USPGA Championship leader Li Haotong
- Published
It is USPGAChampionshipleader 13 months since a major was last played, but the sight of Tommy Fleetwood near the top of the USPGA leaderboard still has that feel of recent familiarity.
The Englishman, who has recorded two major runners-up finishes in as many years, shot a 64 to reach six-under and stand two behind the halfway pacesetter, China’s Li Haotong.
Fleetwood is in a tie for third with countryman Justin Rose (68), France’s Mike Lorenzo-Vera (68), the Australian Jason Day (69) and two Americans in Daniel Berger (67) and Brooks Koepka (68).
Of course, it is the last-named who is looming most ominously as he targets his third USPGA title in succession and a place in the history books. Fleetwood knows all about Koepka’s might in the majors having finished second to the 30-year-old at the US Open two years ago. Fleetwood will certainly require much more of the same brilliance to prevail.
This was Fleetwood at his most irresistible, treating the observers to a trademark display of precision iron play mixed in with that swashbuckling elan of a birdie machine. There were seven in all on his Harding Park scorecard and if he could have avoided the solitary bogey and a few missed opportunities it could have been something truly spectacular in San Francisco.