Tommy Fleetwood reacts to heartbreaking Keegan Bradley defeat

Tommy Fleetwood opened up on his devastation after his first PGA Tour title was snatched away in crushing fashion by US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley.

With a one shot lead heading down the final hole at the Travelers Championship – and after splitting the fairway from the 18th tee at TPC River Highlands – Fleetwood looked poised to end his long and painful drought in the United States.

But after changing club with his approach shot at the final moment, the Englishman only found the front of the green and three putted from 50ft for a desperate bogey.

His soon-to-be Ryder Cup rival Bradley stepped in with a brilliant birdie to pluck the $3.6million win from under the nose of Fleetwood, who has now made 42 top-ten PGA Tour finishes without a victory.

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While Fleetwood was left licking his wounds once more, Bradley has now put himself in serious contention to play on his own American side at Bethpage Black.

Just three months before the showdown on Long Island, the new world No.7 has opened up the possibility of being the first Ryder Cup playing-captain since Arnold Palmer 62 years ago.

Fleetwood, however, just missed out on his first win since the Dubai Invitational last January and should be given credit for fronting up to reporters immediately after his ruinous finish.

“It’s a crappy way to finish,” a crushed Fleetwood said afterwards. “I didn’t really feel like I hit that many bad shots execution-wise, just sort of a couple of bad decisions and didn’t clean them up, which is pretty poor and things that I have to work on.

“Right now I would love to just go and sulk somewhere and maybe I will, but there’s just no point making it a negative for the future. Really, just take the positives and move on.”

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On possible indecision on the 18th fairway, Fleetwood added: “Just couldn’t get a track of the wind, really, you’re obviously-  you’re juiced up a little bit – you’ve got a bit of adrenaline.

“Just got the wind wrong. It was in off the left, then it feels like it dies, then it feels like it goes off the left. You know, in between two shots and just picked the wrong one. Then I hit one that kind of spun up a little bit up against the wind, but went nowhere.

“I was kind of feeling like this might be the moment to hold a long one. I’ve seen people do it recently, so I was like, maybe it’s my turn, but I did the opposite, I three-putted it.

“You’ve left yourself in that situation, 50 feet or whatever it was, you know, it’s not a guaranteed two-putt, and, um yeah… disappointing.”

Bradley was three shots behind Fleetwood with three holes to go but then made two birdies in front of his raucous home crowd and revelled in the wild ‘USA, USA’ chants in Connecticut.

“I’m going to do whatever I think is best for the team,” Bradley later said when asked about the Ryder Cup predicament.

“This certainly changes a lot of things. I was never going to play on the team unless I had won a tournament and so that’s changed. We will see.”

Ben Parsons is the Senior Writer at bunkered and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.