14 January 2024 , 17:06
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Dubai Invitational champion Tommy Fleetwood had to awkwardly sit through an interview with what sounded like an AI robot in 'The Green Room' after winning the year's first DP World Tour event.
Fleetwood, 32, finished one shot clear of Rory McIlroy and Thirston Lawrence in the inaugural tournament at the Dubai Creek Resort. Birding the final two holes saw him surge past his Ryder Cup teammate - who carded a bogey on the last hole after hooking into the water with a one-shot lead - to take the victory.
The win is Fleetwood's seventh on the European Tour and first in over a year since the 2022 Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa. After hoisting the hefty trophy, he faced questions inside the Big Brother-style 'Green Room'.
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Sitting down with the trophy perched on his lap in something akin to the infamous diary room chair, he fielded questions. After being welcomed back, he was asked: "How are you feeling?"
Fleetwood looked perplexed before replying: "Great, yeah, really, really good," before asking the artificial intelligence-generated-sounding feminine voice: "What do we call you, by the way - just call you Green Room?"
After establishing that is what it goes by, he continued: "Feels nice. This thing's heavy (the trophy), but I'll fall asleep with this thing on my lap. I'm very comfy right now." He was then asked about his mistake on the 16th when he dropped a shot. "Frustrated," he acknowledged.
Tommy Fleetwood started the 2024 DP World Tour with a win in Dubai"Being brutally honest, I think you learn every time you play and learn every time you're in contention, and I think, as frustrated as I was, I'd have been more annoyed if I let it get to me when I had two holes to play. You just never know what's gonna happen."
On what was going through his head on the winning putt, he explained: "As I was looking at it, I felt like I was probably gonna make it.
"But also, I remember the way Rory [McIlroy] finished in Scotland [at last year's Scottish Open], and I was playing with him, and there was just something about the putt that seemed very similar to that one he holed, and I just thought, 'feel like it's probably my time.'
"It felt great. It was a brilliant feeling. Of course, you're playing against one of your friends, and you compete in the right way with each other. And yeah, it was just a lovely feeling knocking that one in." The Green Room then congratulated Fleetwood before asking if there was anything more he wanted to add. He obliged.
"This is this is cool," Fleetwood said while looking down at the trophy in his lap. "I'm glad I finally won with the whole family there. I've actually never won with my wife and all the kids there - Mo, our middle boy, has missed out a couple of times, so I've been trying to win with him there, so that was really cool and very satisfying.
"Maybe I'll just chill in here for a bit. Savour it. And then go to dinner, I guess. This is nice. This is cool."