AUGUSTA, Ga. — On a day where most of the field inched backwards at the 2024 Masters, Tommy Fleetwood steadily paced ahead.
Led by birdies on two of his final four holes, the Englishman carded a 71 on Friday and enters the weekend at 1-under par.
“It was a scrap all day,” Fleetwood said. “It’s just like, nothing’s ever done; nothing’s safe ever. You’re never done until you’ve actually got the ball in the hole.”
Following the round, Collin Morikawa turned to Fleetwood in the scorer’s building and said, “It felt like we were out there for a long time.”
And they were.
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Due to darkness on Thursday, Fleetwood, Morikawa and Dustin Johnson began Friday on No. 11, requiring them to complete 26 holes on a gusty terrain.
“We started out on the 11th fairway this morning,” said Fleetwood, who achieved the cut for the seventh-straight year. “It wasn’t easy to start with, and it kept getting harder as the day went on. But at the end of the day, it’s a major, and it’s the Masters.”
For Fleetwood, his mindset was to embrace the conditions, saying, “Enjoy the grind out there and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
And helping him do so was looper Gray Moore.
Moore, the former caddie master at Augusta National, is filling in for Fleetwood’s longtime caddie Ian Finnis, who is sidelined with an illness.
“Just a wonderful human being,” Fleetwood said of Moore. “I’ve loved every second out here with him.”