How does Tommy Fleetwood feel about golf? He loves it, and it is his "absolute favourite thing to do."
That is hardly surprising given his talent and the run of consistency he is on. The Englishman has been chaining together impressive results all season to back up his Dubai Invitational victory over Rory McIlroy and co. on the DP World Tour back in January.
Having only missed one cut all year, there have been 10 top-25 results from 17 starts on both circuits, including a career-best T3 at The Masters back in April. That Augusta finish means the man from Southport, England has now achieved top-fives in all four Majors, too.
Yet, for a player who is so good, questions have long been sent his way regarding the lack of a PGA Tour title - a glaring omission on the resume of a golfer who has played no small part in two Ryder Cup victories.
And despite the quality of his game and the impressive sequence of finishes, Fleetwood knows all that really matters are wins. All in all, the highly-popular 33-year-old has only tasted success once since his second Nedbank Golf Challenge win in November 2022.
So how does he feel about that? And how does he deal with it? Speaking ahead of the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon, Fleetwood candidly explained.
He said: "I try not to dwell on it too much. I get frustrated like anybody else. I get down on myself like anybody else. I don't win anywhere near as much as I would like, and I'm probably not in a position in the game where I want to be, even though I'm doing perfectly well. It's not where I believe I can be, and the results don't always show that.
"But like I said, I try not to dwell on it. I try to focus on positives and what I need to do to actually get to where I want to be or contend in tournaments and win tournaments.
"I try to focus on that every day, but yeah, the game's annoying. Even when you play well, you come off frustrated because you might have missed a putt or you might have finished a shot or two behind where you thought you could. You always start a new week fresh, and I try to focus on that as much as possible really."
Fleetwood is hardly alone regarding the perceived theory that he has somewhat underachieved so far. Cameron Young, for example, is just one of many other world-class golfers who is long overdue a first PGA Tour victory.
But the man who turned professional in 2010 and only really began playing on the PGA Tour regularly in 2018 has willingly admitted he is yet to prove just how good he really is - outlining plans to win several more tournaments while maintaining his childlike joy for the game.
Fleetwood said: "I still love golf. I think golf is my absolute favourite thing to do, and I still don't believe that I've reached my potential at all in what I can do. I think I'm still very driven by that.
"I still wake up every day and want to be the best player I can be, and I still want to find things that will make me better and what I can improve on. There's still so many tournaments that I enjoy playing, tournaments that I want to win.
"I'm sure one day I might wake up and might not have the same enthusiasm for it, but it's never left me yet, and it continues. I'll wake up tomorrow excited to play The Open.
"Whether I play good or bad, I might be disappointed, but I'll probably want to go and practice afterwards and see if I can get better. Yeah, like I say, it's still my favourite thing to do. I love the game."
Fleetwood begins his quest to become Champion Golfer of the Year alongside Jon Rahm and Scottish Open winner Robert MacIntyre at 9:36am on Thursday and 2:37pm on Friday.
