Matt Fitzpatrick celebrates after making a long birdie putt on the 13th hole on Sunday at The Country Club.
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It was everything you wanted in a U.S. Open, unless you were in fact the actual players making the bogeys on the finishing stretch. The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., is hard enough on a normal afternoon. Now throw in U.S. Open conditions, Sunday nerves and major-tournament pressure.
Leads didn’t last. The best in the world looked mortal. Three-putts ruined rounds and drives in the fairway — bypassing that gnarly, thick rough — were ever so precious.
It was a proper U.S. Open, the saying goes, and it was Matt Fitzpatrick who outlasted them all, riding elite ball-striking and a clutch putter to his first major title of his career. And, ironically enough (or not?), it happened on the same course he won a U.S. Amateur title on back in 2013.
The 27-year-old Englishman closed with a two-under 68 to finish six under overall, besting Will Zalatoris (69) and Scottie Scheffler (67) by one.
It was an otherworldly ball-striking round from Fitzpatrick, who hit 17 of 18 greens, including the final one when his drive found the bunker and he needed a clutch out to preserve his one-stroke lead. Fitzpatrick had won seven times on the DP World Tour (previously the European Tour), but this was his first professional victory on American soil.
It was a big one.
Fitzpatrick and Zalatoris started the day tied for the lead at five under. Both entered the week with plenty of game but zero PGA Tour victories. They had thoroughbreds chasing them — Jon Rahm, Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, to name a few — but soon it became a three-horse race between the two overnight leaders and Scheffler, who teed off two pairings in front of them.
Scheffler, the Masters champ and World No. 1, birdied the first two holes to tie the lead and went on to birdie four of the first six. He turned in four-under 31, one ahead of Fitzpatrick.
But Scheffler, who was attempting to be the only reigning World No. 1 not named Tiger Woods to win the Open, found trouble on 10 and 11. He bogeyed 10 after he failed to get up and down from the sand, and he three-putted the 11th. He dropped to four under, and behind him, the Zalatoris-Fitzpatrick head-to-head battle was heating up.
Zalatoris made shaky bogeys on 2 and 3, but he birdied three of the last four to close the front nine. Fitzpatrick, who at one point tied Scheffler at six under, bogeyed the 10th and fell into a tie at five under with Zalatoris.
That’s when the first of two crucial holes entered the mix. Playing the 108-yard par-3 11th — a new addition to a Brookline U.S. Open — Zalatoris rolled in an 18-footer for birdie, and Fitzpatrick three-putted from 17 feet for a two-shot swing. Zalatoris gave one back with a missed fairway and bogey at 12, setting the stage for Fitzpatrick to put a jolt through the gallery when he drained an unlikely birdie from about 50 feet on 13. Zalatoris found more trouble off the tee on 13 and had to punch out, but he made a clutch 12-foot par save on top of Fitzpatrick’s birdie to keep it a tie at five under.
It was around this time that Hideki Matsuyama finished up the lowest round of the week. He rolled in a mid-range putt on 18 to shoot 65, ending his week with a bogey-less stretch of 30 holes. He was in at three under, two behind the current leaders. The number was set.
Zalatoris and Fitzpatrick both parred 14 but found the rough on 15. Fitzpatrick hit the green but Zalatoris landed in a bunker and made bogey. Fitzpatrick drained his birdie putt from 19 feet for a two-shot lead.
It was nine years earlier, on this same course, that Fitzpatrick won the U.S. Amateur. Now he was searching for another trophy in the Boston area.
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Up ahead, Scheffler, could only muster five straight pars after his bogey-bogey start to the back nine. But on the short par-3 17th he had just 80 yards in for an approach and, after a quick jog up to the green to check out the pin, stuck it to six feet and made his putt to get to within one.
Fitzpatrick parred the 16th as Zalatoris answered with a birdie to tie Scheffler at five under, one back. Scheffler had a chance to tie Fitzpatrick with a birdie on 18, but he couldn’t convert his 23-footer.
After pars on 17, Fitzpatrick went to the 18th leading Zalatoris and Scheffler, the new clubhouse leader, by one. Then it got interesting, one last time. Fitzpatrick found the fairway bunker off the tee but pulled off a crafty out, landing safely on the green and two-putting for par. Zalatoris had a good birdie look to tie him and force a playoff, but he ran it just by the left edge.
Incredulous, Zalatoris crouched down and put his hands on his head. For Fitzpatrick, the celebration was just beginning, and at The Country Club once more.
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