It may happen one day, but for now, digging his way out of the biggest slump of an otherwise glittering golf career has been the 30-year-old’s priority. It has been a difficult and emotional process, but proof that he is back came with a career-best tie for fourth at last month’s Open.
He was the leading UK golfer that week on the Antrim coast, and it was a fine way to end the men’s major season. Even more so given where Fitzpatrick’s game was when it began at April’s Masters.
The previous month, he had missed the cut at the Players, parting company with caddie Billy Foster – with whom he won the 2022 US Open. This woeful early spring stumped expectations, after taking time to restart his career after a disappointing 2024. He was confident to fight again, but his game continued to be in shambles.
“I just didn’t have it,” Fitzpatrick said to BBC Sport. “I’d done a ton of work, my coaches had done so much work, and it just didn’t happen. There’s no rock left unturned for me, but it’s difficult when you’re planning to strike a shot and getting it by quite a distance. I just didn’t know what to expect.
“And that’s when you hit an all-time low in confidence, and you think that you can’t move forward. After the Masters, in which he tied for 40th, the onetime world number six was ranked 75th.
He didn’t know how to stem the slide. And occasionally, things happen off the course as well. These ups and downs added to what had hitherto been unthinkable – a break with Mike Walker, his coach and friend since Fitzpatrick’s mid-teens.
Walker shares a practice day with fellow South Yorkshireman Pete Cowen and aided his protégé in winning the US Amateur in 2013 before going pro. My bond with Mike is bigger than golf, actually,” Fitzpatrick explained. “He’s somebody I’ve admired ever since I was 14 or 15.
“I could tell him anything, and my regard for him is so great. And then again, I wasn’t playing all right, and things perhaps needed to be altered. It’s my work and I had to sort myself out.”
The week following the Masters, Fitzpatrick began training with the Alabama-based instructor Mark Blackburn. It was the first time that I’ve ever had anybody take a look at my swing, or take a lesson off anybody other than Mike Walker or Pete Cowen in 15 years,” Fitzpatrick said.
Blackburn sought to learn about his new student’s physical abilities and flexibility level. They quickly found that Fitzpatrick has abnormally long arms. That’s not good for striking irons because it’s harder to control the club depth and you’re going to strike it heavier more times than not,” he mentioned.
“The other thing is I don’t have tremendous shoulder flexion, and because of that, as soon as I make the swing too long, I lose posture and my swing is all out of killer.”
When completing 11 under par at Portrush, it was observed that before each shot, Fitzpatrick would move back his shoulders and thrust out his chest. It’s me pinching my shoulder blades together,” he explained.
“It is essentially to make the radius of my arms, so I can just turn there and I don’t have to stretch or move my arms. The labour is showing dividends. Fitzpatrick was eighth in May’s US PGA at Quail Hollow, one of five top 10s since the Masters – including fourth place at the Scottish Open the previous week to Portrush, and eighth place share in the Wyndham last Sunday.
Now he seeks to push on to complete the top 30 on the PGA Tour and earn a spot in the end-of-season Tour Championship in Atlanta. He is currently 41st placed and competes in the first play-off event, the FedEx St Jude, which begins in Memphis this Thursday.
Asked to name who he thanks for guiding him through the darkest moments of his career, Fitzpatrick responds: “My mum and dad and wife Katherine. She was always telling me that I had won the US Open; ‘you’re a fantastic player, you are going to get it back’.
“It is true, you need to have the right people around you, and I feel very fortunate that I’ve always had that.”
