Tommy Fleetwood arrived at Delhi Golf Club expecting to recreate his heroics from last year and successfully defend the DP World India Championship. But his opening round brought an awkward situation that highlighted the course’s unforgiving nature. Inclement weather had already made the challenge more severe. But on the par-4 ninth hole, his ball ended up in dense vegetation, to make things worse for the Englishman.

EssentiallySports reported that he didn’t get free relief.

“Tommy Fleetwood’s golf ball ends up in the Jungle on the 9th. No relief given,” EssentiallyGolf wrote in an X post, which featured a video showing the defending champion searching for his ball and then taking a shot from where it was.

Delhi Golf Club demands accuracy, and its thick vegetation can leave players with few attractive options after an errant shot.  That’s exactly why many players, including Rory McIlroy, Ryan Fox, and Min Woo Lee, hesitated to use their driver.

The 2025 Tour Championship winner started with a 263-yard provisional-1 shot to the rough. He then played from the tee again, only to hit the ball into the bushes this time.

After the ball landed in the bushes, the 35-year-old asked officials about his options. Officials denied free relief, though Fleetwood was permitted to move branches to take his stance—a standard allowance under golf rules.

Rules 8.1b(6) and 15.1a apply here. Under Rule 8.1b(6), a golfer may take reasonable actions to reach the ball and take a fair stance. This allowed Tommy Fleetwood to potentially move or bend vegetation as an unavoidable part of getting into position. According to Rule 15.1a, he could have also moved broken or detached branches.

However, this didn’t stop him. In his approach shot from the bushes, the Englishman found the right rough. With 197 yards to the hole, he took his third shot, which landed on the fairway, forty yards from the hole. The fourth shot got him on the green, but he missed a six-foot birdie on the fifth. He ended the hole with a double bogey after making a two-foot putt.

Brutal, but that’s how the par-four ninth at Delhi Golf Club is. The club’s course guide describes the approximately 450-yard par four as one of the toughest holes on the Lodhi course.

Players need to position their tee shots carefully, with the left-center of the fairway identified as the preferred target. Reaching the top of the slope requires roughly 270 yards, adding another consideration to the opening shot. The approach brings its own challenges, with contours at the front of the green making distance control and placement important.

That combination leaves little room for mistakes. A player who misses the intended line can face a difficult recovery, especially when dense vegetation complicates the next shot. And Fleetwood is aware of that.

Before the tournament, Fleetwood highlighted the difference between this year’s conditions and those he faced during his successful 2025 campaign.

“The biggest difference is the rough, how thickly they’ve grown it and penal they’ve made it,” he said during the pre-tournament press conference.

The remark provides useful context for the ninth-hole incident.

After the double-bogey on the ninth, Tommy Fleetwood finished his round two-under 70. But he has a strong reason to remain optimistic despite the early setback. He won the inaugural DP World India Championship in 2025, finishing at 22 under par to beat Keita Nakajima by two shots. He finished with a closing 65, but his opening round was far from his best of the week.

Fleetwood started that tournament with a 68 before producing a bogey-free 64 in the second round. Eight birdies helped him reach 12 under par and take a one-shot lead at the halfway stage.

That progression offers a more meaningful measure of his resilience than any prediction about how this year’s tournament will unfold. An imperfect opening round didn’t stop him from building momentum in 2025, and he still has three more rounds to repeat that this year.

Fleetwood returned to Delhi with consistent results, including top-five finishes at The Open and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in 2026. But he has yet to win an event this year, which adds significance to this championship.

He is currently tied for 13th after the opening round, alongside Rory McIlroy and a few others. However, many golfers have yet to complete the opening round because of a weather delay earlier today.

But since Tommy Fleetwood has completed his round, the defending champion will be thinking hard about what happened on the ninth hole. However, it was just an early test of the defending champion’s patience and course management. Delhi Golf Club’s demanding conditions can punish mistakes, but the Englishman’s previous victory offers evidence that a difficult start need not end a title challenge.