Tommy Fleetwood is set to make his first competitive appearance since August this Thursday, hoping to fly out of the blocks with a win in the CJ Cup.
After finishing the 2019 season with a career-high FedEx Cup rank of 16th and an impressive second place finish in the Open Championship, the 28-year-old from Southport will be setting his sights on a positive performance to get himself into a good spell of form.
Approaching his tenth year as a tour professional golfer, Tommy is ranked 15th in the world, according to the Official Golf World Rankings.
The CJ Cup is the first event of the 2020 PGA Tour in which many of the world’s superstars take part, such as Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and defending champion for this competition, Brooks Koepka. The South Korean crowd will be strongly supporting their home nation golfers, such as world ranked 48, An Byeong-Hun and former Fed Ex Cup ranked 4th KJ Choi.
The American technician, Koepka, who finished third in the FedEx Cup last year, will be the main man standing in Fleetwood’s way. The current world ranked number one holds the current course record for this tournament, scoring an impressive -21 last year.
Additionally to the $1,700,000 prize money for a victory, another large incentive for an impressive performance from Fleetwood will be qualification into the 2020 Ryder Cup team. Due to new adapted rules, the top five ranked European golfers on the world points list automatically qualify to play in the tournament. This means, therefore, that he will face tough competition from top European golfers, such as Rory Mcilroy, John Rahm, Justin Rose and Francesco Molinari, in order to guarantee his place in the competition.
As well as the tough competition, Fleetwood will have a tricky task in tackling the course, especially considering this is his debut in the tournament. NINE BRIDGES, located on Jeju Island in South Korea, is a tricky Par 72, voted the best golf course in South Korea. In the shadow of the 6,400 feet-high, Mount Halla, Fleetwood will be looking to display his intentions against the world’s best for the upcoming season.
Picture by James Richardson – Creative Commons License
