Fleetwood ready for first major

England’s Tommy Fleetwood has hailed the quality of the American players but says there is no reason why he cannot win The Open.

The Americans have a stranglehold on all the majors at the moment after Brooks Koepka retained his US Open title last month and Patrick Reed won the Masters. They follow on from Jordan Spieth’s Open victory last July and Justin Thomas’ win at the USPGA Championship.

That crop of players, along with the likes of Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler are expected to be in the hunt again, but Fleetwood is looking to break the mould.

“There’s no doubt about it and there’s no other way to put it, than they have an exceptional bunch of players at the moment,” said Fleetwood.

“It will be nice to break that run, but you don’t look at them as a nationality. You look at them as players and people and you can understand why they are winning the majors.”

Fleetwood showed he has what it takes to compete at the very top when missing out on the US Open earlier this year by just one shot.

“Straight after the US Open I wanted The Open to start straight away because you are on such a high,” he said. “It was disappointing coming that close but you had that momentum and it was more proof that I can finish 72 holes right up there.

“One shot is a quarter of a shot a round so it’s not that much. There’s no good reason why I can’t win a major.”