Q. Great performance last week by you and your team at the Team Cup. How important is that tournament to everyone that goes on to eventually play or be a captain or vice captain at the Ryder Cup?
TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, of course, said it so many times. You go back to Whistling Straits, we were on the plane home after taking a hammering and looking at what we needed to do over the following two years to give ourselves the best chance. The team event was the first thing that came up in our minds.
I think Luke spoke really highly about the tournament in Rome and what an important role it played in leading up to the Ryder Cup. I think from Luke's perspective, from a vice captain's perspective, and players as well, I think it's all -- well, you can never replicate the Ryder Cup, of course you can't.
But you put yourself in so many similar situations, and playing in a team environment, and even the staff to how the nutrition works and everything like that, I think it plays a very big role in what goes on in September.
And yeah, on top of that, for us, GB&I, we had a great week. Players played great and we managed to win a trophy at the start of the year as well.
Q. How important for you to qualify for the Ryder Cup and not be a pick and give Luke a free hand elsewhere?
TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, I think it's always a goal to qualify for the Ryder Cup. That was my goal in the last one, which I didn't manage to do.
But you want to qualify for the Ryder Cup, and not rely on a captain's pick, of course, and Luke, you know, I was very grateful that Luke showed his faith in me in the last one and made me one of the six picks. It gets harder and harder, really, to qualify.
I think even from my first one in Paris, there was -- I feel like it might have gone down to nine qualifiers at that point but there's a big difference from nine to six, and then the way that the qualifying criteria is now on kind of World Points sort of system and how strong European golf it's very, very difficult to qualify. So if you're actually in those qualifying spots, you've had great year. So you can look at that from an individual basis on how your year has been as well.
Yeah, I would love to be there in any kind of form. I hope that I'm playing and I hope that I'll be one of the guys that qualify.
Q. You had a wonderful week last week personally, played fantastic golf right out of the blocks for this new year, how much confidence can you bring into this championship?
TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, I didn't get the chance to practise much or play much leading into it, and we had that Pro-Am on the Wednesday and I played awful. Like my game was in, like, no kind of shape, and I had a really long practise session after Wednesday. Worked on some good stuff.
Feel like I played okay on Thursday in the practise rounds, and then, yeah, to build confidence to play the way that I did, to hit the shots that I did, I felt like my swing felt in a good place, I putted well, and my routines were good.
Yeah, individually, being able to play that way coming into a stretch of tournaments now at the start of the year was a nice confidence boost for me and at the same time, there's a different pressure when you're playing for a team. I think you feel responsible for a lot more than yourself. You feel responsible for everybody that's involved in that, and I think being put into that environment can only be a big help leading into individual play.
So there was a lot of great stuff for me to take from last week into this week.
Q. Last year was a great one for you, finishing top 10 in the World Rankings at the end of the year and you won the Dubai championship, second places, third places, fourth places. What's needed for you to win more often? Something you're focused on in particular or one of those things that it's tough to win and it has to be your time?
TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, it's tough to win. You can look at any number of things that would produce more wins but I think, you know, ultimately, trying to stay as consistent as possible, put myself in those positions as much as possible. I think one of the greatest winners of my generation, well, if not the greatest, is Rory. Rory puts himself in those situations all the time and wins plenty as a result of it.
I love looking at the best players and the consistency levels that they have and I know that you look at somebody like Scottie Scheffler and the season he had, which is ridiculously phenomenal, of course it is.
But just looking at the guys that put themselves in contention all the time, and then deal with those situations and then pick events off as they go, I think that's the kind of player that I want to be. I want to continue to improve my all-around game and put myself in a position to win as many times as possible and then win as a result of that.
I think, of course, like I say, you can look at any time you're in contention, you look at, Oh, I could have done this better, or I could have done that better, or I hit a poor shot there or that could have gone different. But just continue to be consistent, put myself there, and hopefully my time will continue to come more often as the time goes on.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports