Englishman and Under Armour Golf UK ambassador Matthew Fitzpatrick eased to his second European Tour victory in last week’s Nordea Masters. Since turning pro off a handicap of plus four in 2014, the impressive 21-year-old has endured a very promising start to his professional career and now finds himself sitting amongst the elite inside the world’s top 35. Fitzpatrick reeled off 17
birdies in his first three rounds, giving him a comfortable five-shot lead heading into Sunday’ showdown. He never looked back as he waltzed to a three-shot victory to secure his place in this year’s Open Championship. On a course which boasts five par-5s, a good performance tee-to-green was always going to go a long way in determining how high up the leaderboard you finished.
Fitzpatrick certainly got it right this week.
Matthew played the longer holes in 10-under-par without a single dropped shot. The only way this would be possible is by hitting fairways and greens, something which the winner did time-after-time. He actually finished third in ‘Driving Accuracy’ at over 73% of fairways found for the week, and first in ‘Greens in Regulation’ with 85% of greens being hit – that’s 7 out of every 8 greens! Impressive golf.
Here’s what Fitzpatrick had in his golf bag…
- Driver – Callaway Big Bertha Alpha (10.5 degrees)
- Fairway woods – PING G 3-wood & 5-wood (14.5 degrees & 20.5 degrees)
- Irons – PING i25 (3-5 irons); PING S55 (6-9 irons)
- Wedges – PING Tour Gorge (47 degrees); Vokey SM5 (54 & 58 degrees)
- Putter – Yes
The term ‘journeyman’ gets batted around a lot, but that’s exactly what last week’s PGA Tour winner, William McGirt, is. By his own confession he’s been around the block, but the 36-year-old’s career will never be the same again after his sudden-death playoff win at the Memorial Tournament. It was a very steady scorecard for McGirt on Sunday, mixing one birdie with 17 pars to record a one-under-par 71 and tie Jon Curran at the top of the leaderboard. And it was a similar story in the playoff as both Americans went to head-to-head. Pars for both on first playoff hole meant a second was needed. Both Curran and McGirt missed the green at the second time of asking, and once Curran failed to get up-and-down, McGirt was left with a seven-footer for the win. This was McGirt’s maiden Tour victory in his 165th start, upstaging a star-studded field in the process.
Here’s what McGirt used en-route to victory…
- Driver – TaylorMade M2 (8.5 degrees)
- Fairway woods – TaylorMade M2 (13 degrees); TaylorMade M1 (17 degrees)
- Irons – Srixon Z-U45 (2 & 3 irons); Srixon Z-745 (5-PW)
- Wedges – Cleveland 588 RTX 2.0 (54 & 60 degrees)
- Ball – Srixon Z-Star