Tommy Fleetwood pieced together a five-under 67 at Quail Hollow on Friday to sit one shot off Sungjae Im at the halfway point of the 2026 Truist Championship, a result built almost entirely on the part of his game that has so often deserted him in big weeks: his putter.
The Englishman has spent much of the past 12 months hovering near the top of major weekend leaderboards and walking out of media tents wearing the same patient face. On Friday at Quail Hollow he was happy to admit he had not had his best ball-striking day, and just as quick to laugh at the strange way the same stroke can feel like a battle one week and free the next.
"It's funny, like you do the same things, but sometimes it just feels like a battle and sometimes it feels like it flows a little bit more," he said. "It's stupid, right?"
Fleetwood was first off the tee in the morning wave and putted himself into contention with a clean card that included no bogeys. The greens at Quail Hollow have firmed up and shifted their grain through the week, and the 33-year-old gave the surface itself a generous share of the credit.
"The greens aren't easy. The greens are very, very difficult," he said. "I just had a really good eye for it over the first two days. I putted well, and that's been a big difference for me."
It is a striking line for a player whose strokes-gained-putting numbers have sometimes been the polar opposite of his strokes-gained-tee-to-green. Fleetwood admitted that, in a season where he has produced top-five Sunday positions at the Masters and at Hilton Head without converting, the stats finally needed to validate the work.
"I just picked the right lines and I hit them on the right lines," Fleetwood said. "But sometimes you go through runs where you feel like you do everything well, you read it well, you commit to your line, you hit a good putt, and it doesn't go in. Then you just need to see the ball going in a little bit more. That's what it's been like for the first two rounds."
Today, he said, was about scoring well rather than swinging well. He admitted he did not have his usual rhythm and got ahead of a few shots, but kept the misses in playable spots and let the work on the greens bail him out.
"I felt very in control yesterday," Fleetwood said. "Today didn't feel like I swung it as well. Definitely didn't have my rhythm. Got ahead of a few shots, but I didn't hit it in any terrible spots, and I felt like I scored very well, so those are the positives to take."
The Englishman pushed back firmly on any suggestion that his last few weeks have been disappointing. He pointed out he was inside the top five at Augusta National before the weekend, and said his Hilton Head result was sunk by a single bad round more than anything systemic.
"I think the margins are so small and the players are so packed," he said. "I was never going to shoot 19 under last week, but a couple bad holes and you fall away quite easily. The level of play is so high that you don't have to be that far off to look that far off."
He stopped just short of saying the result was overdue. He preferred the phrase "a nice reminder" — that the work eventually shows up in scoring, even when it does not feel like it during a round.
"It's nice even to get a couple of days where you have something to show for your work," Fleetwood said. "Just a nice reminder that it will come good at some point if you keep doing the right things, so that's been great. I just hope it continues."
Asked about Englishman Alex Smalley, who has emerged from his rookie PGA Tour campaign already contending in signature events, the Truist contender slipped into mentor mode, praising Smalley's late-2025 European form for setting up his current breakthrough.
But the headline from Fleetwood's afternoon was about himself. He sits one back of Im at eight-under, with a Saturday morning tee time alongside the leader. With the PGA Championship at Aronimink waiting nine days down the line, the world No. 9 was not about to talk about winning.
For now, quietly, the putts are going in. For Tommy Fleetwood, that is enough.
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*Originally published on [Golf News Global](https://golfnews.global/article/tommy-fleetwood-truist-championship-2026-quail-hollow-putting-battle). Visit for full coverage.*
