Fleetwood wins Tour Championship for first PGA Tour title

Final leaderboard for the Tour Championship

-18 T Fleetwood (Eng), -15 P Cantlay (US), R Henley (US), -14 S Scheffler (US), C Conners (Can), C Young (US)

Selected: -13 J Thomas (US), K Bradley (US), -11 V Hovland (Nor), -10 S Lowry (Ire), -9 R MacIntyre (Sco), -7 J Rose (Eng), -6 R McIlroy (NI)

Tommy Fleetwood persevered to win the Tour Championship and, at the 164th attempt, to win his first PGA Tour crown.

After he holed the winning putt on the 18th green, the 34-year-old Englishman cried out in awe as he saluted the crowd who had raised both arms and sounded a loud roar.

As Fleetwood won the FedEx Cup by three shots, under par, and won the $10 million (£7.4 million) first prize, his European Ryder Cup team-mate Justin Rose was greenside filming the final putt and celebrations on his phone.

A three-shot lead down the last doesn’t feel like that many when you’ve lost so many, joked Fleetwood, who was teary-eyed.

The fans are amazing, and it gives me a little emotional energy. I’m so fortunate to receive such exceptional support, and I hope everyone understands my gratitude.

Fleetwood’s previous seven victories on the European-based DP World Tour were his eighth career title, which means he has escaped the dreaded stereotype of being the nearly man of the American PGA Tour circuit.

He becomes the first Englishman to win the FedEx Cup at the Tour Championship, following Rose in 2018, and the first one to do so since the FedEx Cup era, which dates back to 2007 ().

With the Ryder Cup in New York on the horizon next month, Fleetwood’s victory was secured by an assurance that will greatly benefit European golfers.

One of the most well-known players on the PGA Tour is Southport’s Fleetwood, who received a much louder ovation on the first tee than his American playing partner Cantlay.

After the first three rounds, the pair were tied at 16 under, but Fleetwood was four shots clear after birdieing the second while Cantlay opened with a bogey and double bogey.

The world number one, who was four shots adrift, hit his opening tee shot out of bounds, giving Scheffler a setback in the first round.

However, a bogey on the fifth attempted to refute any notions that Fleetwood would win the title.

With nine minutes left, he was three clear of the drama, but his sixth and seventh-round bogeys made it three clear.

His lead was cut to one after a bogey on the 10th and a Cantlay birdie. Given that they were nearly two holes behind the group in front, the pair were also instructed to increase the pace of play.

With birdies on the 12th and 13th holes, Fleetwood extended his lead by two to two.

Scheffler, who won both the Open Championship and US PGA Championship this year, was still present. Scheffler was 15 under and two under when he finally came out on the par-three 15th when he posted a double-bogey five.

The hopes of US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley suffered the same fate a short while later.

Bradley, who will make his decision on Wednesday whether to choose himself from his six choices for the Bethpage Black contest in the coming month, snuck into the lake after playing a tee shot all weekend.

He had denied Fleetwood his first victory at the Travelers Championship in June because he was out of steam in Atlanta.

Russell Henley, Bradley’s playing partner, did not move much as much as Bradley did. In a one-under-par 69, he missed numerous birdie putts, putting him in second place with Cantlay (15 under).