Matt Fitzpatrick interview: I am still not happy with what I have achieved despite winning US Open
As Matt Fitzpatrick enters the season’s third major and the final week of his first decade as a professional, he agrees to take just a little time out of the hectic present to reflect.
“Yeah, if you’d have told me what I’d achieve in these 10 years then I would not have believed you,” he says. “But then, if you also told me that after all that, I still wouldn’t be happy, then I really, really wouldn’t have believed you.”
For the record, since joining the paid ranks, Fitzpatrick has lifted 10 titles, including the 2022 US Open, played in three Ryder Cups, reached the top six in the world and accumulated more than £30 million in on-course earnings. At the very least, he has emphatically built on the foundations of a garlanded time in the amateurs that saw him win the US Amateur.
As the first Englishman to secure that prize since Harold Hilton in 103 years he was already in historic company when, as that slender 19-year-old, he pitched up at Pinehurst for the 2014 US Open to play alongside Phil Mickelson and defending champion Justin Rose in the first two rounds.
Yet at the revered American golf resort, he proceeded to join a yet bigger name in the record books.
“What Bobby Jones connection?” Fitzpatrick replies when asked about emulating the US legend. At Pinehurst No 2, the young Yorkshireman became the first since Jones in 1930 to hold low amateur titles at The Open and US Open at the same time.
“God, I’d forgotten that,” Fitzpatrick says. “Which is completely pathetic of me because he’s clearly a legend of the game, but that week’s all a bit of a blur, with playing with Phil and everything. The thing I remember most is Lorne [Duncan, his caddie] holding my arm aloft on the 18th green. It was a bit cringe as that’s not my cup of tea and I’d finished tied 48th or something. But Lorne helped me a lot and had faith in me. He is a good guy, if a bit bonkers. Remember the Masters?”
At Augusta two months before, Duncan was banned from Fitzpatrick’s bag because the stuffy officials objected to the open-toed sandals he always wore due to a foot complaint.
Fitzpatrick ended up missing the cut by a stroke and because of his relationship with the maverick Canadian –who previously worked with Sir Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer – could be forgiven for thinking that the Masters’ petty rules cost him the silver medal there, as well. And all because the green jackets could not bear the thought of pinkies being exposed among their azalea.
However, Fitzpatrick moved on and moved upwards. “My first pro event was the week after at the Irish Open. I finished tied 29th and went straight to the prize money list to find out I’d won €17,500,” he says. “One of my managers back then used to take the mick as I’d always know down to the penny or the cent how much I won. Typical Yorkshireman, he said. But my view was that it was now my profession and that every shot and every pound counted.
“That doesn’t last because it becomes about the silverware and that’s when your expectations change and you reset your goals. So when you are young, you’d think: ‘It’d be amazing if I did that – I’d be happy.’ And you are but then you get to that level and you strive to get to the next one and so it carries on until, like I was a few months ago, saying: ‘No, it’s not good enough.’
“You never step back and look at it as a whole and continue down the wrong path. That’s part of the problem and is a negative for me in some ways, but as those around me point out, it can also be a positive as it drives me on.”
With a fifth at the Memorial on Sunday, he is only just emerging from a low patch. Previously, he had only recorded one top 10 – an outlier of fifth at The Players – from 13 starts in 2024, with a missed cut at last month’s USPGA. He fell from eighth at the beginning of the year to 17th and the frustration was obvious. Inevitably his attitude was picked up by his team. “He’s turned a corner now,” Billy Foster, his bagman and another great character of the caddieshack, says. “I’ve told Matt that I don’t think he’ll be that far away at the US Open, so to get his chops off the floor.”
Fitzpatrick essentially blames scheduling mistakes for his poor run of form. “I haven’t had enough time with Mike [Walker, his coach],” he says. “We had a long team meeting a few weeks ago and Mike made a great point I’d never really thought about. He said that when I won at Brookline [in the 2022 US Open] I was passing through a technical sweet spot.
“I’d put on all that length in the off season and technically it was very, very good and it led to a great year. The issue I have is that I’ve gone so far away from that, it’ll take time to get back to that place. But we’ve done some really good work these last few weeks and it’s feeling positive again.”
Fitzpatrick recognises the symmetry of returning to Pinehurst and not only because of his milestone. His “most special week” as an amateur came at Brookline with that US Amateur victory and when he went back to the Boston layout as a pro two years ago, he became the second English winner of America’s national championship in 52 years.
“Pinehurst was another special place for me as an amateur, so who knows,” he says. “It’ll be fast and firm and that’s how I like it. When I got there in 2014 I thought ‘this is right up my street’ and I’m looking forward to going back to another venue where I have great memories. Apart from Lorne holding up my arm, of course.”
Foster is also excited, but by the nature of the challenge rather than any resonance. “The harder it is for Matt, the better,” he says. “He is a golf sadist, loves it when making par is a feat. He is a bit like Faldo, like that. Tough majors are his bag and I’d say he’s got at least a few more in him.”
