Ahead of the Masters, Matt Fitzpatrick was asked for his target at Augusta. After an injury-ravaged start to the year, he suggested that simply making the cut was his goal.
A week on from finishing in the top 10 at the opening major of the year, he edged out Jordan Spieth in a thrilling duel to win the RBC Heritage and pocket just shy of £3million.
Victory, his second on the PGA Tour after last year’s US Open success and the first by an Englishman at this event since Nick Faldo in 1984, catapulted him up to eighth in the world rankings.
Fittingly, it all played out at Harbour Town, where he regularly spent his family holidays from the age of six. His family were in attendance to watch a win that had looked unlikely a few weeks ago when he suffered four missed cuts in six starts following his return from a neck injury.
For Spieth, bidding to become only the tournament’s fourth back-to-back winner, it was agony after a putt to win lipped out of the hole.
Both men had chances to win the event, Fitzpatrick with birdie putts on the final two holes, neither of which he could convert to give him a closing round of 68 in contrast to the 66 from his American rival.
Momentum looked to be with Spieth come the play-off having won in similar circumstances over Patrick Cantlay a year earlier but he could not take his birdie chances on either the first or second play-off holes.
On the third, Fitzpatrick nearly found the hole from the fairway with a nine iron for an easy birdie tap-in, with Spieth left to rue his earlier missed chances when he failed to match his rival.
Following the win, Fitzpatrick said: “It’s hard to describe. It doesn’t get better than this – walking down here, just looking around. It’s a course I dreamed of playing when I was young. Of every single one on the calendar, this is the one that I would want to win the most.
“To be a winner here, every year I’ve driven down the drive and you see the winners here and I’ve always thought ‘I’d want to be one of those’ and here I am.
“I managed to play a couple of times with my dad and, yes, this one means more than anything. I feel like I have been very lucky in my career – I have won a major and now this. This is very special.”
