Page 26 - Golf Champion - June 2022

[PGA TOUR]

Open. He’s also the second, after Jack Nicklaus at Pebble Or was it fate? The relationship between a player and a
Beach, to win both at the same course. golf course can mean more than meets the eye. Jon Rahm
“I love playing this golf course,” said Fitzpatrick, whose captured the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, the site of
masterstroke was a birdie from just outside 48 feet at his first TOUR win and not far from the hiking trails
the 13th hole, eliciting a Tiger-like upper-cut amid the where he proposed to his wife.
roars. “It suits me so well. It suits my game well. I've been Similarly, Fitzpatrick summoned his old magic from 2013
playing well for a while, and I think it all just fell into this week in part by staying with the same host family,
place that this was the place it was going to happen.” Will and Jennifer Fulton, and their three kids, Sam,
Zalatoris, who lost playoffs at the Farmers Insurance Annabelle and George. Susan and Russell Fitzpatrick,
Open (Luke List) and PGA Championship (Justin Thomas) Matt’s parents, and kid brother Alex stayed there, too,
earlier this season, and who also was seeking his first just like nine years ago.
TOUR win, had a birdie putt on 18 to force a playoff, but The final hurdle for Fitzpatrick, having driven into the
it burned the left edge. Billy Foster, Fitzpatrick’s caddie fairway bunker on 18, was clearing the lip that had
who had never won a major, tugged his cap down over thwarted Jon Rahm the day before. He took out a 9-iron
his face. Fitzpatrick hugged him before moving on to his and caught the ball flush, clearing the lip and pelting the
mother, brother, and father. He laughed and wiped away green for a two-putt par.
tears. Fitzpatrick still looks like a kid, which is to say he doesn’t
look all that different from the player who won here
Fitzpatrick’s 17 top-10s without a win were the most on in 2013, with the exception of the logos and maybe a
TOUR since the start of the 2019-20 season. Zalatoris, few extra pounds. If you’re a certain type of dewy-eyed
with 16, now moves to the top of that list. Fitzpatrick is dreamer, you can still squint at Matt and Alex and see
the first player since Danny Willett at the 2016 Masters to Ouimet and his own kid-caddie, Eddie Lowery, in 1913.
notch his first TOUR win at a major. But that’s certainly not how Matt Fitzpatrick would
Was it force of habit? Fitzpatrick has twice won the explain this week.
Omega European Masters in Switzerland, twice won the He charted all those shots, got longer off the tee after
DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, and now twice watching others bludgeon courses into submission, and
won on this hallowed turf outside Boston, which grew drew on the lessons learned from being in the final group
blustery and decidedly chilly for the weekend rounds. Sunday at the PGA Championship last month, when he

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