Matthew Fitzpatrick becomes youngest player to reach current OWGR top 100
Get used to hearing the name Matthew Fitzpatrick.
The 2013 U.S. Amateur champion earned his European Tour breakthrough on Sunday, taking the revived British Masters in a wire-to-wire victory. The win pulls the young Englishman inside the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking, improving from 111th to 59th after his Woburn win.
That accomplishment makes Fitzpatrick the youngest player in the current top 100 at 21 years, 1 month, 11 days old.
The next target for Fitzpatrick is cracking the world top 50. If he can do that at year-end, he'll earn an invitation to the 2016 Masters. Staying in the top 50 would earn Fitzpatrick invitations to the U.S. Open and British Open, as well the World Golf Championships events. Getting into those events offers a great opportunity for Fitzpatrick to stay in those events for years to come, as the young gun's father explained the OWGR math to him.
“If you’re in the top 50 it opens so many doors and my dad says it’s self-perpetuating,” Fitzpatrick said after his win on Sunday. “The money is bigger, ranking points are bigger and your card is easier to keep."
That's not to say Fitzpatrick's first win was for a paltry sum. Fitzpatrick earned $762,212 with the win, capping off a run that, starting after the British Open, saw him finish on the medal stand three times in his prior seven European Tour starts.
“This year, my goal was to keep my card and I was not 100 percent sure I was going to do that after the start I had," he said, "but I managed to start to play well and the past two months have really got going and made me a lot of money."
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
