LOS ANGELES — Tommy Fleetwood’s run at the Los Angeles Country Club arrived a day late, but it was still incredibly impressive.
Fleetwood made two eagles in his final round at the US Open on Sunday afternoon, making him the first person to have a pair in a single round at the tournament since 1990. His second eagle of the day the rocketed into the top five on the leaderboard as well, although the final pairing of Rickie Fowler and Wyndham Clark has yet to begin.
Fleetwood, after an even par 70 in his third round, entered Sunday at 2-over. That put him a full 12 strokes behind Fowler and Clark and nearly out of contention for the third major championship of the season.
But the 32-year-old Englishman played an almost perfect round of golf. He birdied the second hole and then deftly drove the blind green to the par-4 sixth. His tee shot landed safely about 6ft from the cup on the narrow green above the thick barranca and below a dangerous hill and bunker, and set it up with an easy eagle putt.
This eagle, which put Fleetwood under par for the tournament, was only the third on this hole of the tournament.
Fleetwood’s run didn’t end there. He birdied three more in his next five holes. Then, on the par-5 14th, Fleetwood managed to hit his second shot from the left to the green. This set up a 20-foot eagle putt, which he drained into the back of the cut to have the crowd roaring around him.
Although Fleetwood bogeyed the 16 after landing in the fairway bunker, he still finished with a 7-under 63. It was one of the best rounds anyone on the court had carded all week, and just one shot away from the tournament record both Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele hit on Thursday. He narrowly missed a birdie putt on the 18th which would also have tied the record. Fleetwood finished at 5 under the week, which was good for fifth solo when he entered the clubhouse. He finished tied for fifth with Min Woo Lee and Rickie Fowler, five strokes behind eventual winner Wyndham Clark.
Fleetwood struggled to ride much of a race before Sunday in Los Angeles. He went 3-over in his first round, and went 1-under on Friday while carding six birdies and five bogeys. But he is the first player in US Open history to shoot two rounds of 63 or better, which he did in 2018 for the first time.
“It’s a nice little piece of history, for sure,” Fleetwood said. “And you may be disappointed that I didn’t pull out today, but I think having something like that and shooting multiple 63s in a major, and I think anything like days like today “Today where you can put in the memory bank and know that you can throw rounds and your game can stand up on a major golf course and shoot low scores, that’s really nice to have.”
Fleetwood is yet to win on the PGA Tour, although he came close last week at the RBC Canadian Open. Fleetwood lost in a four-hole playoff in Toronto to Nick Taylor, who became the first Canadian to win this tournament in nearly 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, although Brooks Keopka edged him out by a shot at Shinnecock Hills.
Although almost certainly too far to make an impact, Fleetwood’s charge on Sunday was a remarkable feat. It’s also going to net him a much, much larger paycheck by the end of the night.