{"id":279443,"date":"2025-11-12T09:17:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/279443\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T09:17:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:17:16","slug":"tommy-fleetwood-responds-to-accusations-of-slow-play-and-gamesmanship-during-abu-dhabi-championship-playoff-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/279443\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Fleetwood responds to accusations of slow play and ‘gamesmanship’ during Abu Dhabi Championship playoff \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Photo: Richard Heathcote]<\/p>\n

Slow play is all the rage. And by all the \u201crage\u201d, we mean literally, as in the emotion. We saw it last week, when Sleepy Hollow Country Club\u2019s pace-of-play naughty list<\/a> went viral, and again when our own Chris Powers suggested that doxxing golfers who are 12 minutes slower than the suggested pace is a little extreme<\/a>. But as always with human beings, the response to a problem eventually becomes the problem itself, and that fact reared its \u2018fugly\u2019 head on the DP World Tour this weekend when Tommy Fleetwood was accused of slow play by the Sky Sports broadcast during his playoff with Aaron Rai at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Yes, you can beat slow play<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what I don\u2019t like. To me, they\u2019ve both got to arrive at the tee at the same time. I don\u2019t like that. That gives the person who arrives on the tee last an advantage,\u201d Sky Sports commentator Andrew Coltart said when Fleetwood arrived on the playoff\u2019s first tee several moments after eventual winner Aaron Rai.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy is just slowing it all down, a little gamesmanship. Clever. Making him wait, stew,\u201d co-commentator David Howell replied.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Undercover tour pro shares real reasons for five-hour rounds<\/a><\/p>\n

If Fleetwood \u2013 one of the pro golf\u2019s few true \u2018good guys\u2019 \u2013 being accused of dabbling in the dark arts struck you as odd, you weren\u2019t alone. In fact, Fleetwood himself was surprised by the interpretation of events on Sunday, offering a very simple explanation for the delay:<\/p>\n

Nature called.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did see the comments\u2026 It\u2019s one of those things, I don\u2019t know \u2013 look, you don\u2019t know in what context it was said. I didn\u2019t hear it. I read it,\u201d Fleetwood explained at the DP World Tour Championship overnight (Australian time).<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s disappointing\u2026 Andrew, I think very highly of him. I think he\u2019s amazing \u2013 I\u2019ve read one little piece and I\u2019m not saying \u2013 whether the article was written that way. I\u2019m not going to accuse anybody of meaning anything by it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just saying from my point of view, I had just played with Aaron for 36 holes, we are unbelievably close and unbelievably supportive of each other in our careers. I was desperate for the toilet, and then as soon as I was finished, I ran to the tee and that was how it happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, you know, I think everybody knows that I \u2013 or I would hope that everybody knows that I wouldn\u2019t do anything like that, and I think the world of Aaron, as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo no, I don\u2019t know how it was written. It\u2019s hard to comment on something or defend yourself on something that you to the extent know in what form it was said or written.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut like I said, that\u2019s what happened. We walked off the 18th and I was desperate to go to the toilet, I said to Miguel, \u2018Can I please go to the toilet?\u2019 He said yes. I ran to the toilet; ran to the tee.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: Former major champion\u2019s simple slow-play fix? Ban AimPoint<\/a><\/p>\n

Seems reasonable enough to us and Fleetwood has given pundits little reason to doubt his sincerity and intentions over the years. But hey, if you\u2019re a pace-of-play hardliner, perhaps the reigning Tour Championship winner\u2019s explanation still isn\u2019t enough. Perhaps your need for speed is so great that only one thing can possibly satisfy it:<\/p>\n

Adult nappies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: Richard Heathcote] Slow play is all the rage. And by all the \u201crage\u201d, we mean literally, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[6938,72670,161969,4225,64,63,161970,118461,755,138747,44,2648,161971,85,42347],"class_list":{"0":"post-279443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-aaron-rai","9":"tag-abu-dhabi-hsbc-championship","10":"tag-andrew-coltart","11":"tag-article","12":"tag-au","13":"tag-australia","14":"tag-david-howell","15":"tag-dp-world-tour","16":"tag-golf","17":"tag-golf-digest","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-playoff","20":"tag-slow-play","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-tommy-fleetwood"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}