NEWTOWN SQUARE, PENNSYLVANIA | Whether deliberately or accidentally, and I hope it was deliberately, the PGA of America officials gave Alex Fitzpatrick a dig in the ribs before he teed off in today’s first round of their championship.
It was as if they said to the young Englishman: “We know you have risen from 204th in the world at the end of last year to 83rd this week. We appreciate you are having the time of your life on the PGA Tour with a victory with your brother, Matt, in the Zurich Classic in April followed by ninth- and fourth-place finishes on your own in the last two signature events at Doral and Quail Hollow.
“But we are going to bring you down to earth,” the officials might have continued. “You’re going out in the first group of the day, a 6:45 a.m. start.”
“Wow, that was early,” Fitzpatrick said later, smiling. “When you have such an early start you want to go to bed the night before at 7:30 or 8 but the trouble is then you can’t sleep. Plus the forecast was that there would be no wind but when we got here it was quite windy.”
By the time the hands of the clubhouse clocks had reached 7:15 on a grey, chilly morning, Fitzpatrick was 2-under par and leading the 108th PGA Championship. A birdie on the first was followed by another on the second. A third birdie of his day came on the 13th to counter an earlier bogey and he was 2-under par and threatening some irreverent behaviour to a venerable and historic golf course.
That’s the way it has been for the younger Fitzpatrick lately. This was only his second major championship he has played in and at the moment he is making golf seem so easy.
Those curling downhill five-footers on a green with a Stimpmeter reading of 12 or even 13? They might be knee knockers to many players but to him they are no trouble. A recovery from thick rough around a tree to a raised green 220 yards away? Watch me. A long bunker shot like the one his brother Matt played to help them win the Zurich tournament? Not too challenging.
You think to yourself: oh, the confidence of youth.
How will he behave when this golden period he is in starts to fade? When his driving becomes slightly awry and his ball bounces into a bunker instead of stopping short?
And then you realise Alex is only 27, he’ll learn. His recent success has come so suddenly – in the blinking of an eye seemingly – that even he says “I don’t really know what is going on, to be honest.” Golf teaches the lessons of life, that is one of its attractions. He’ll discover that golf is not always as easy as it seems to him now.
How will he behave when this golden period he is in starts to fade? When his driving becomes slightly awry and his ball bounces into a bunker instead of stopping short? When the weather turns wet and windy just as he starts a round? When his putts shave the hole instead of falling into it? These are the times when we’ll discover whether Alex is as strong as the steel used in the cutlery his home city of Sheffield, England, is famous for, as strong and determined as Matt, his older brother, or whether he will subside like a soggy rice pudding.
This is what Matt said about him recently: “We’re very different. I kind of made the joke at Zurich a few years ago, he’s the happy, bubbly one, I’m the miserable one, which kind of still stands, I guess.”
Both tend to prostrate themselves on a green to size up the line of a putt. Both play at a welcome lick. If there is a difference it comes in their swings. Alex has a pause at the end of his backswing, one that is more discernible at times than at others. It’s not a Cam Young pause but nor would you describe the speed of his swing as resembling the speed of a snake’s tongue.
“He [Alex] has definitely got such a great attitude,” Matt continued. “He’s always kind of bouncing around, always so pleasant to be around. So nice to everyone. Not to say that I’m not but he really is so polite.”
And then Alex Fitzpatrick’s good nature, the pleasantness to everyone that Matt had talked about, was tested when he almost shanked his second shot out of a bunker to the left of the 14th green.
His ball was up against the back lip and he had one foot in and one foot out of the sand. He took a swing with a curtailed backswing and thinned his ball, watching as it zoomed at knee height across the large green and into another bunker. He was further from the flagstick after two strokes than he had been in one. Cue muttering and banging of the ground.
“I have nothing to complain about. I have had the best three or four weeks of my life. Golf brings you down to earth.” – Alex Fitzpatrick
He had another bunker misadventure on the next, the 15th and another on the 16th. What was going on? This wasn’t like the Alex Fitzpatrick of the past few weeks. A long wait on the 17th tee while another group played the ninth enabled him to gather himself and claim a par and then a deft and delicate lobbed pitch from 80 yards to the 18th green helped him save his par there, too.
So a round that at one stage promised an under par score eventually became a 2-over-par 72, five strokes behind the early leaders Aldrich Potgieter, Stephan Jaeger, Min Woo Lee and Ryo Hisatsune. “I have nothing to complain about,” the younger Fitzpatrick said outside the clubhouse. “I have had the best three or four weeks of my life. Golf brings you down to earth.”
Tomorrow the fight begins anew: Aronimink against Alex Fitzpatrick. Can he make the cut? We shall see. Roll up, roll up.