Matt Fitzpatrick stays hot with win at Dunhill Links Championship, pro-am victory alongside mother
Since Aug. 20, Matt Fitzpatrick has nearly won the BMW Championship, finished top 10 at the Tour Championship, collected $4 million playing golf, won a Ryder Cup while playing alongside Rory McIlroy and now won a tournament at the Old Course at St. Andrews while playing alongside his mom. Oh yeah, and he got engaged.
How’s that for a seven-week stretch?
Fitzpatrick took the Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews by three in a Monday finish over Marcus Armitage, Ryan Fox and Matthew Southgate. He and his mother, Susan, also won the team pro-am portion of the event.
The Dunhill Links was shortened to 54 holes this year because of some gnarly weather in Scotland over the last several days. Fitzpatrick was nearly flawless on Monday, however, going out in 33 and coming home in the same to get to 19 under over the three-day tournament. The Fitzpatrick team score was 35 under, closing with a 59 to win by five.
“Win with my Mum [feels even better than the individual win],” said Fitzpatrick. “Easily. Yeah, she’s been wanting to play all year and she’s been looking forward to it. To go out there and play as well as you did and as well as I did as well, it’s amazing to win together.
For a player at the Dunhill Links to get to pick their partner at this tournament, they must have either won a major or be ranked in the top 15 in the world. Fitzpatrick qualifies under both categories after closing out the 2022 U.S. Open at Brookline.
“From when I won the U.S. Open last year, I knew that the criteria was you had to win a major or top 15 in the world to be able to pick your partner here,” he said. “That was one of the first things we spoke about, if we can play Dunhill together, and that’s what we did last year. And last year was clearly a warmup for this year. We did very well this year.”
The win is Fitzpatrick’s ninth on the DP World Tour but his first at a non-major since October 2021. He also won the RBC Heritage in April just after the Masters. He put this one up there with all the rest.
“Doesn’t get better than this,” he said. “Winning at St Andrews, yeah, it’s just a very special place. We’ve been coming here for a long, long time as well, and yes, it doesn’t get better.”
It’s been an amazing run of golf in what has been an up-and-down year for Fitzpatrick. He began 2023 dealing with some injuries before that RBC Heritage win and moving into the summer where he notched just one top 10 and never threatened at a major.
Then came the run at the end of the FedEx Cup Playoffs where he closed T2-T9. He then went to Europe and finished T3-T18 there before winning his first-ever Ryder Cup. He was no bystander in Rome, either, carrying McIlroy for stretches of their four-ball play and making five birdies in a row at one point. Their Friday afternoon point was part of a session that more or less ended the Americans’ hopes of winning the 44th edition of that event.
Fitzpatrick’s play has improved as the year has worn on. He’s tracking to have the second-best statistical season of his career — behind only the dream year of 2022 — and now he’ll look to win the DP World Tour Championship in November for what would be the third time of his career (Jon Rahm holds the most DP World Tour Championship wins with three).
While Fitzpatrick’s season was in no need of saving, he’s made it look better over the last two months than it did over the first two of the year. And with his move to No. 7 in the Official World Golf Rankings, his St. Andrews win is yet another reminder of how consistently good he is right now and how difficult it’s going to be to unseat him from his spot among the best in the world.
