What a difference a year makes for Matt Fitzpatrick entering this week’s BMW Championship in St. Louis.
The Englishman entered each of the last two BMW Championships firmly on the top-30 bubble to make the Tour Championship.
Entering this year’s event at Bellerive Country Club, he’s No. 2 in the FedEx Cup standings and in no danger of failing to advance to the final event of the FedEx Cup playoffs next week in Atlanta.
“It’s been an amazing year. Best career year to date, which is obviously always, yeah, you want that every year, obviously, if you can,” Fitzpatrick, 31, said at his press conference on Wednesday. “But yeah, I think it’s been really positive all around. Just obviously happy to be in the position I’m in to try and give it a good final couple of events.”
Best season of his career may be putting it mildly for Fitzpatrick. Three of his five career wins have come this season after he was held without a win over each of the prior two seasons. He also has four more top-five finishes, finished in the top 25 of 14 of his 19 events and missed just one cut.
According to him, though, he’s not in contention to be named the PGA Player of the Year.
“Obviously, it would be amazing to be able to achieve that. I think a certain someone (Scottie Scheffler) sewed it up last week, if I’m honest,” Fitzpatrick said with a laugh. “So, yeah, I think it will be, obviously, a great opportunity to play well this week and next week to try and put my name back in the hat, but yeah, definitely a lot of weight on that for sure.”
It has made this breakthrough season that much more special for Fitzpatrick that his brother, Alex, has become a contender on the PGA Tour. The brothers won the two-man Zurich Classic in April, earning Alex — who had been competing on the DP World Tour — his PGA Tour card through 2028.
Even with a delayed start to the PGA season, Alex Fitzpatrick, 27, is well-positioned to also make the Tour Championship, sitting in 20th in the FedEx Cup standings entering the BMW Championship behind four additional top-10 finishes since joining the tour.
“I think, obviously, winning how we did and kind of being thrown in the deep end, you never know how he’s going to take. Obviously, to have, I think, he had three top-10s since that doing that, sort of straight away as well was really nice to see,” Matt Fitzpatrick said. “I think it was a really good confidence boost for him to show that he has the game to compete. So, yeah, I mean, hopefully, he can sort of play well the next couple weeks as well and sort of finish off a really great season that he’s had.”
–Field Level Media
