PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Matt Fitzpatrick said he’s feeling more and more like his old self.
There was an unlikely key to his turnaround: an oversight with his equipment.
Trying to match up his driver and iron set, the 2022 U.S. Open champion said that he underwent a round of driver testing last February that involved adding a 4-gram weight to his grip.
“For whatever reason, I just forgot that it was ever in there,” he said.
But it started causing some issues with his game. That extra weight created more face rotation and more kick from the shaft.
The result was a left miss.
Fitzpatrick still played well at times — he won the RBC Heritage and Dunhill Links Championship — but he noticed a dip in his driving performance after the spring.
“I wouldn’t say it was OK. Maybe I’d have won four times if I had it out,” he said. “We were just very confused, swing-wise.”
It wasn’t until his driver was re-gripped last month that they noticed the added weight.
Fitzpatrick was floored.
“As soon as it came out and I hit it the next day, it felt night and day,” he said. “I could hit it as hard as I want, and it wouldn’t go left. Previously, I felt like I hit it hard, and it would just go straight left.”
Fitzpatrick entered this week’s Players Championship ranked 92nd on Tour in strokes gained: off the tee — a far cry from where he was two years ago, when he won the Open ranked 10th on Tour in that statistic.
Accurate driving, of course, is paramount at TPC Sawgrass, where any miss off the tee can be severely penalized. Fitzpatrick hit all but three fairways in Thursday’s opening round and ranked first in the field off the tee, powering his 6-under 66 that left him just a shot off the pace at the Tour’s flagship event.
“I drove it like I feel like I can drive it,” he said. “To me, it felt a bit like my old self: drove the ball well, putted well, and that’s always been the key to when I’ve played well, really.”
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