A week after he bogeyed the 72nd hole to lose the Players Championship by a single shot, Matthew Fitzpatrick flipped the script with a fist-pumping final-hole birdie to win the Valspar Championship by one.
Fitzpatrick — who’d never birdied No. 18 at Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course in 11 previous tries — found the fairway at the finisher and hit his approach to 13 feet, setting up a look at 3. He poured that putt in the center of the hole, punctuating the moment with an emphatic uppercut that electrified the surrounding crowd.
When David Lipsky’s birdie try finished just below the hole some 10 minutes later, Fitzpatrick’s win was official.
“I think the big thing was I felt like I was playing well,” Fitzpatrick said of his Players Championship bounceback. “I was playing well going into this week, obviously wanted to continue that and I felt like I had confidence in myself to do so. Then obviously to do that over four rounds was special this week.”
He was sitting in the white-walled scoring trailer when he got the news and then fired off emotional FaceTimes to his wife and parents before speaking to NBC’s Kira Dixon.
“I’ve not seen [his wife] Katherine for three weeks, so I’m so excited to get back and see her; and my parents are coming out in a week or so as well. Yeah, it’s just such special people in my life and, yeah, just so excited to share this with ’em,” he said in that interview.
“Any win is fantastic. To me, just getting over the line is always difficult,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s so hard to win out here. Three wins now out here is something that, you know, I want obviously plenty more, and more and more big wins. So, yeah, to win this week is a big stepping stone for moving forward.”
A Fitzpatrick-Lipsky showdown was hardly the expected final-round storyline. Sunday’s final pairing had set up an unlikely duel between Brandt Snedeker, the 45-year-old Presidents Cup captain with conditional PGA Tour status, and Sungjae Im, who’d been out for months with boot camp and injury. The two were a combined zero-for-six in made cuts this season. Im held a two-shot lead over Snedeker and Lipsky, with Fitzpatrick lurking one shot further back.
But Im was out of sorts early, making five bogeys and five pars in his opening 10 holes as the rest of the contenders blew by him, making him the fourth consecutive Florida Swing 54-hole leader to yield in the final round. Snedeker stumbled on the back nine; he was even par through 11 holes but five over the rest of the way to drop to T18.
“This golf course, it’s a perfectly designed golf course, if you get out of position it’s going to punish you. All those putts I’ve been making all week dried up today,” Snedeker said. “It’s frustrating, it sucks, and all the good stuff this week kind of feels like I threw it away today. But that’s part of golf, that’s why I love this challenge, and I’ll come back next week and try to figure out what I did wrong and try to fix it.”
That left the door open for Fitzpatrick, who somehow survived Saturday and Sunday bogey-free. His final round was hardly perfect; he failed to birdie any of the course’s four gettable par-5s. But he gutted out several clutch par saves, kept a clean card and set up late birdies at 15 and 18 to seal the deal.
“I felt frustrated all day that I had not made anything. Obviously to make something there on 15, and hole the long one there on 18 to in the end to secure the win was an amazing feeling,” he said.
Jordan Smith finished solo third after one of the rounds of the day, a five-under 66, that got him to the clubhouse lead at nine under.
Xander Schauffele shot 65 to finish T4 a week after his third-place finish at the Players; he ended up tied with Im and Marco Penge, who logged the first top 10 of his season.
“Just relax, probably take a few days off into next week,” said Schauffele, who’s in good form entering major championship season. “Then kind of gear back up for Augusta.”
Patrick Cantlay was part of a group that finished T7; it was his first top 10 since last August … Jordan Spieth finished T11, his third top-12 in four starts … Gary Woodland finished T14 a week after an emotional interview as he continues to battle both physical and emotional health … Brooks Koepka finished T18, his third consecutive top-20 since returning to the PGA Tour.
