By Ahad Sanwari

Copyright hellomagazine

Tommy Fleetwood capped off August on cloud nine, so to speak, winning his first PGA Tour title in his 164th event on August 24, taking home the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup, plus its $10 million prize. Prior to his win, Tommy had 30 top five finishes, with six of those ending as the runner-up. The long-awaited victory may have tasted very sweet, but it also came with the disappointment of not having his entire family in attendance to witness it go down.

The English golfer, 34, spoke with press before this week’s BMW PGA, confirming why his wife Clare Craig, their son Frankie, and one of his stepsons through Clare’s first marriage, Murray “Mo,” were absent from his PGA win in Georgia last month. As it turns out, their absence came due to a difficult family situation.

“Yeah, so our middle boy, Mo, had a spinal operation just over a month ago now,” he said, referring to his 16-year-old. “So they were unable to travel. Actually the week of Memphis, they were in the hospital and he was recovering and they actually just got home before we got home. He had three and a half weeks I think in the hospital.”

His older stepson Oscar, 17, was able to join, pictured giving his doting stepfather a hug after the big win. Fortunately, Tommy confirmed that Mo’s surgery not only went well, he had also managed to recover enough to be with him now. “He is a lot better. He is here this week,” he confirmed.

Tommy continued to explain that the biggest lesson he’d gotten out of the PGA victory was perseverance, something he’d hoped to pass along to his kids as well, including seven-year-old Frankie. “It’s easy to tell the kids the right thing all the time. But being an example that it can happen for you if you keep going, I think more than anything, it was like, I had the opportunity to show my kids what can happen, and then like you can do it.”

“So I think that was the most important thing to me. That was the thing that touched me the most,” he continued, saying it was the experience that meant the most to him than any of the other high-profile congratulatory messages, such as from Tiger Woods, LeBron James, or Caitlin Clark. “I think the whole thing touched me more than anything, more than any particular person.”

Per the PGA Tour website, the proud dad spoke of “resilience” as his defining trait on the tour, explaining: “I think it’s easy for anybody to say that they are resilient, that they bounce back, that they have fight. It’s different when you actually have to prove it…I’ve had to be resilient in terms of putting myself back up there, getting myself back in that position, no matter how many times it doesn’t go my way, no matter how many doubts might creep in.”

Tommy concluded by simply stating: “I’ve been a PGA TOUR winner for a long time. It’s just always been in my mind.”