There are two teams that have displayed utter faith in Matt Fitzpatrick in 2025 and, as he looks forward to the forthcoming winter break, he does so knowing he has proved them both absolutely correct in their judgment.
Ahead of September’s Ryder Cup, his three previous appearances in the match had reaped just one victory and seven defeats. There were genuine mitigating circumstances for that dismal record and yet there were also many who suggested that he was a potential weak link.
The European captain Luke Donald was not one of them and, after he handed his fellow Englishman a wild-card pick, Fitzpatrick rewarded the trust by earning 2½ points in his four matches at Bethpage Black.
The other team is the one Fitzpatrick surrounds himself with every week of every year – his family, his friends and his golf advisers – who stuck with him when his career hit a stumbling block.
“Everyone in the team has really come together. I couldn’t be happier and obviously in that down period I had the support of my wife and my friends and family and to turn it around. To be here now is very special.”
Matthew Fitzpatrick
From the 2024 U.S. Open to the eve of this year’s PGA Championship, the 31-year-old failed to record one top-10 finish in 21 starts (and there was also just one top-20 in that unlikely run).
It was a difficult time. A period when doubts lurked and questions hung over him.
But he persevered. He dug deep. And so did those around him.
Eighth place at Quail Hollow in the year’s second major championship was a sign that he was overcoming the slump. It was the first of eight top-10s in 15 starts before he headed to last week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, where he ended the year on a majestic high with a playoff victory over his Ryder Cup teammate, the defending champion and world No. 2 Rory McIlroy.
There was never any doubt that the Sheffield-born Yorkshireman had a great chance on the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates in the DP World Tour’s season finale. In nine previous visits, he had on five occasions finished in the top five, including victories in 2016 and 2020.
But Sunday’s final round was a Ryder Cup reunion – all nine members of the European team who made the journey to Dubai were tied 12th or better after 54 holes – and it was anyone’s guess who would emerge triumphant.
That said, no less than 15 of the first 16 DP World Tour Championships had been won by a player who had already represented his country at a Ryder Cup, so it was no great surprise that two of the nine – Fitzpatrick and McIlroy – ended the regulation holes on top.
Fitzpatrick set a clubhouse target following a round of 66 that demanded fortitude before and after the turn. He opened with three birdies in five holes and ended it with a trio of par breakers in the final half-dozen holes. In between, he heeded the advice of his caddie, Dan Parratt, to stay patient.
McIlroy was 5-under par for his final round through 11 holes and apparently all set to win the championship for a fourth time, but two bogeys quickly followed before he revived memories of his 72nd hole at this year’s Irish Open with a dramatic eagle-3 at the last to shoot 67 and join Fitzpatrick on 18-under 270.
They were run close by their European teammates Tommy Fleetwood and Ludvig Åberg, who shared third, one shot shy of extra holes, with Laurie Canter and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen.
Alas, the playoff was an anticlimax. McIlroy found water from the tee and limped to a bogey that the winner bettered with a regulation par.
After his third success on Earth, Fitzpatrick said the result “means the world.”
He added: “I’m just so proud of myself and the effort that everyone puts in behind the scenes. Dan’s gone above and beyond in the effort that he’s put into this team. My coach Mark [Blackburn] and my performance director Luke [Mackie] have been awesome. My putting coach Phil Kenyon is amazing and my strength coach Andrew [Lysy], too.
“Everyone in the team has really come together. I couldn’t be happier and obviously in that down period I had the support of my wife [Katherine Gaal] and my friends and family and to turn it around.
“To be here now is very special.”
McIlroy was defeated on the day but not for the year as he won the 2025 Race to Dubai. It was his seventh triumph in the season-long race, taking him one clear of the tally of Seve Ballesteros that he equalled 12 months ago.
The emotional Northern Irishman said: “It’s amazing. I had a conversation with his wife, Carmen, before I went out to play today and she told me how proud he would have been.
“I said this on this green last year, he means so much to this tour and to the European Ryder Cup team. We rally so much around his spirit and his quotes and everything he meant for European golf.
“To equal him last year was cool but to surpass him this year – yeah, I didn’t get this far in my dreams. It’s very cool.”
Now he is eyeing Colin Montgomerie’s record of eight titles.
“I want it,” he said. “Of course I do. I was the first European to win the career Grand Slam and I would love to be the European with the most wins in terms of the [Race to Dubai]. Hopefully I can catch him and surpass him.”
Marco Penge finished Race to Dubai runner-up to McIlroy off the back of three victories this year, just 12 months after he made birdie at the final hole of the regular season to save his card.
The Englishman was the winner of the first of the 2026 PGA Tour cards on offer to the top 10 players on the Race to Dubai rankings not already exempt. He will be crossing the Atlantic alongside his fellow Englishmen Canter, John Parry and Jordan Smith, Norway’s Kristoffer Reitan, France’s Adrien Saddier, Sweden’s Alex Norén, China’s Haotong Li, Japan’s Keita Nakajima, and the Dane Neergard-Petersen.
Matt Cooper