Tommy Fleetwood didn't receive £120,000 Open prize money after it was sent to wrong person

Daily Mirror

7 days ago

Tommy Fleetwood saw the funny side after an embarrassing clerical error by the European Tour saw someone else receive his prize money from The Open Championship
Tommy Fleetwood didn't receive £120,000 worth of prize money following his T12 finish at The Open Championship back in 2018. The Englishman, 34, is still in search of his first major after securing a T16 at Royal Portrush last week.
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He was never really in contention, and he went on to card a seven-under par, with Scottie Scheffler instead dominating from the opening round and going on to win his first Claret Jug by a four-shot margin.
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Fleetwood has come close at the Open in the past, finishing as the runner-up in 2019. That means the tournament has contributed a hefty sum of money to his impressive career total earnings of £23.1million.
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Yet, the popular Southport-born golfer was once left scratching his head following the Open at Carnoustie after his winnings were accidentally transferred to an American man with the name Thomas Fleetwood.
Thomas Fleetwood, a club professional based at Streamstrong Resort in Florida, was born in 1959 and contested the European Senior Tour's qualifying school four times from 2013. Fleetwood, who is also a caddie, told Reuters he had been trying to get in touch with the Englishman.
He said: "It was an honest mistake. I tried to get on their senior tour, so they have my [bank] information."
The PGA Tour star himself was left more confused than annoyed by the error, as he said: "It looks pretty genuine. They [the European Tour] are looking into it and I'm sure they'll feel pretty bad about it.
"It's a funny story. It's just something I don't really look at but I'll get on top of that."
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Greg Thorner, who posted the screenshot of his friend Thomas' bank account, said: "He played a few European events so the European Tour obviously had some information on him and it must have got mixed up.
"I didn't believe him at first but then I watched him log into his account and I was like 'Holy crap'. He was not positive it was the same amount that Tommy won at the Open but we checked and it was.
"He immediately contacted the bank and told them you've put money into my account that's not mine and unfortunately the money has already been taken out."
The European Tour, now the DP World Tour, said at the time: "This was a clerical error which we are resolving and we apologise for the inconvenience caused to both parties."
Fleetwood is set to receive £137,535 for his latest efforts at the Open. He will hope to receive his money without any surprises along the way this time around.