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It’s a reasonable assumption to make, if not necessarily a fair one, that Matthew Fitzpatrick is one of the least-known players in the world’s top 20. Indeed, having reached that level for the first time seven days ago, Fitzpatrick, 25, might be described as the least likely to be known. He does not look old enough to be ranked among players such as Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas nor even Jon Rahm, the newly crowned world No. 1 who appears to be significantly older than Fitzpatrick yet in fact is younger.
Among the faces on the PGA Tour, Fitzpatrick’s is that of a choirboy, someone yet to start shaving, a person who still has no fear of downhill 4-footers on greens that have a Stimpmeter reading of 12.5. But as we know, looks can be deceiving. He looks young yet plays old. He looks slight yet has power. Twentieth in the world, eh? He might have got there with little fanfare and little noise – being by nature a self-effacing, slightly diffident person – but he deserves it.
“He may not be the best ballstriker but he is by far the most professional player I have ever worked for,” said Billy Foster, who has worked for Seve Ballesteros, Tiger Woods, Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood, among others, and will return to duties as Fitzpatrick’s caddie at the WGC-FedEx St Jude Invitational in Memphis, Tennessee, starting on 30 July. “On the practice ground every shot is hit with a purpose. There is not one shot that he has not detailed, thought about. The caddies are impressed with him when they see how hard he works.”
Jim “Bones” Mackay, Phil Mickelson’s longtime caddie, took a break from his current role as a roaming reporter at golf tournaments for NBC-TV and caddied for Fitzpatrick at the Workday Charity Open earlier this month and then the next week’s Memorial, both at Muirfield Village. Modest and unassuming, Fitzpatrick said that he was flattered to be approached by Mackay. Bones, for his part, was hardly stinting in his praise for the Englishman, calling him “a good, really good player” and describing Fitzpatrick’s ability to read greens as uncanny.
“Matt hasn’t got any weaknesses,” Foster said. “He is a good iron player, an OK short game and an exceptional putter. His driving is long enough with a good ball flight and it’s straight. He has a special drive he calls his second serve when he knows he must hit the fairway. He is long enough, about the tour average of 290 (yards) or so.”
“Matt has the game to win majors. Take Winged Foot (for the US Open in September). Conditions will be firm and fast and the course will be nearly impossible. Right up Matt’s street.”
Chubby Chandler
There is something of Zach Johnson about Fitzpatrick. Small in stature, neither man has thunder either in their voices or their golf. They are both the sort who say little but are well worth listening to when they do speak. A third in this category is Luke Donald, who also got every possible advantage out of his talent. Like Matt Wallace, another among the squad of 12 Englishmen competing on the PGA Tour, Fitzpatrick fights and fights. “Nothing scares him,” Foster said. “I once said to someone that Matthew carries his balls around in a wheelbarrow, he’s so courageous, and I meant it. I call him Bernhard Langer’s love child because he is mentally so gritty. When conditions are tough it’s as if he moves up a gear. His mental strength is his 15th club in the bag.”
Two rounds this year demonstrate this characteristic. In March at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, won by fellow Englishman Tyrell Hatton, Fitzpatrick’s 69 in the final round was the only score better than 70 that day. Conditions had been very difficult all week. “My score added up to 72 and I felt like I shot a 65,” Marc Leishman said after his third round. “So yeah, it was really tough.”
At the Memorial four months later, the course that had been almost benign the previous week for the Workday Charity Open was turned into a tiger. Winds of 15 to 25 mph blew most days and once again Fitzpatrick turned in an outstanding demonstration of ball control and mental strength under very trying conditions. Only five players broke par on the last day when the average score of the field was 75.9. Fitzpatrick’s 68 was two strokes lower than the next best and moved him up 15 spots into solo third place.
Fitzpatrick is also helped by the strength of a powerful family. Alex, his younger brother, is on a golf scholarship at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. At last year’s Walker Cup at Royal Liverpool, it was noticeable that as Alex led the way for Great Britain & Ireland in the Sunday singles, Matthew was there, rucksack on his back, giving sibling support.
Last May, Matthew Fitzpatrick returned to the US to rejoin the PGA Tour that he had left when the Players Championship was abandoned in mid flight two months earlier. His father drove him the nearly 200 miles from Sheffield to London’s Heathrow Airport to see him off. It didn’t matter that Fitzpatrick is 25 and a multimillionaire and could have comfortably afforded a taxi. Russell and Susan Fitzpatrick had always done that sort of thing for their sons, Matthew and Alex. Why would it be any different now? Some offspring can’t wait to flee their parents’ influence. Matthew Fitzpatrick, still living at his parents’ house when he is in England, still consults them for advice.
In character, Fitzpatrick is as solid as he is a golfer, not given to boasting or vainglorious acts. He has moved forward slowly in the professional ranks since turning pro with a handicap of plus-4 in 2014 after winning the US Amateur the previous year. He has five professional victories on the European Tour to his name, which is solid, yet only one top-10 finish in any of the major championships – a tie for seventh in the Masters in 2016.
Few players work harder than he does and if you have watched him closely you will have seen him learning week by week, month by month, year by year so that his current world ranking is both his highest ever and well deserved. And that 15th club of his is an enormously powerful weapon. No wonder that Chubby Chandler, who was once Fitzpatrick’s manager, said: “Matt has the game to win majors. Take Winged Foot (for the US Open in September). Conditions will be firm and fast and the course will be nearly impossible. Right up Matt’s street.”
Top: Matthew Fitzpatrick and caddie Jim "Bones" Mackay during the final round of the Memorial Tournament
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