Tuesday 4 April 2017 08:24, UK
Tommy Fleetwood is hoping to make a smooth transition from spectator to competitor as he makes his Masters debut this week.
Fleetwood, one of a record 11 Englishmen in the field at Augusta National this week, watched the action from behind the ropes three years ago and had high hopes of teeing it up as a player the following season, only to miss out by a single place in the world rankings.
But he qualified comfortably this year following an excellent run of form which included victory in Abu Dhabi and a runner-up finish at the WGC-Mexico Championship, where he was just one shot adrift of champion Dustin Johnson.
Fleetwood heads into Masters week ranked 32nd in the world, and he admitted he was finding it difficult to avoid being overawed by being at Augusta as a player rather than a patron.
"It's very cool," he said. "I came to watch in 2014 with the intentions of being there the following year and finished 51st in the world that year, so I just missed out. But watching and playing is a completely different.
"Whoever you speak to just says not just how the golf course, but the surroundings as well, everything takes a little bit of getting used to. Augusta is in everybody's mind and everybody's dreams and it's just that place that you know that you want to go to, so it's a little bit surreal when you first go.
"I had a chance the go, and I thought, I'll go, because I just want to see what it's like and when I do come, I might not be as awestruck. But it doesn't quite work like that, when you get to the golf course, it's still the same feelings.
"After playing it a couple of times, the first thing that struck me was it's the first course I've ever seen where precision is so important, and it's the biggest course I've ever seen for that. It's kind of forgiving off the tee and the fairways are quite wide, but you still have to take the tee shots on to give yourself the best chance of hitting the iron shots in.
"But around the greens, there's no other place like it. We play a lot of courses where it's kind of simple to wander around and say 'you can't hit it there' or 'over there is a good miss and that will be fine'. But this place is very, very different.
"You can see why it's not only power hitters that win, because approach shots to the green, the course can work in your favour you as much as it can harm you, and if you are on your game and your irons are very precise, then you can use it to your advantage."
Fleetwood's world ranking plummeted during a poor 2016 campaign before he lifted his game towards the end of the season, and he described qualifying for the Masters as one of the greatest accomplishments of his career.
"It's the hardest tournament to get into," he added. "You speak to a lot of great Tour players, especially in Europe, and the Masters is the one they had not done, although they will have played PGAs or they will have qualified for the US Open or got in The Open.
"So getting into the Masters is very difficult and I think it's a landmark for someone's career, something that they want to enjoy, hopefully. I'm not counting on this being my only chance, but it is great to be here and it's an accumulation of a lot of hard work over the last year, coming from a long way down the world rankings and struggling."
