The rain-soaked fairways and greens made conditions challenging, but Fleetwood remained unfazed, clocking three more birdies in his next nine holes. He finished with a birdie on the par-5 16th hole and another on the treacherous 18th. The close left him grinning, but he would not predict future results, not after the last two years. Looking ahead to his next round, he said: “I might play terrible, I might play great. We’ll see.”
Fleetwood was much more certain about the eventual fate of his once-famous beard.
Asked if his wife, Clare, likes him clean shaven or with facial hair, he answered: “She definitely has a preference, and it’s not this one.”
Fleetwood does think he looks younger without the beard. He was playing in a tournament with his fellow tour players Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa on his 31st birthday in January, he said, when the duo looked at him and told him: “We had to Google your age. I thought you were 37, 38.”
He added: “Everyone kind of noticed that I look a lot younger without the beard.”
But then Fleetwood had a final thought.
“Clare definitely prefers me with a beard, so I’ll definitely grow it back,” he said. “As long as I can keep my temper and keep smiling, then I won’t have to shave it off again.”