In games of dogged physical pursuit, laziness is rarely tolerated. Golf, however, has a more complicated relationship with the term. Former four-time PGA Tour winner Carlos Franco used to routinely show up on the first tee without hitting a single ball on the range before or after play, and he was lauded as a natural talent who simply didn’t like practice in the same way a person simply doesn’t like to eat olives. If you called him lazy, as the range rat Vijay Singh once insinuated, Franco didn’t care.
“He tells me, ‘Practice more, practice more,’” Franco remembers Singh saying. “I say, ‘I don’t like it. Maybe I need it, but I don’t like it.’ I’d rather go fishing.”
To less of an extreme, Alex Fitzpatrick has long walked a similar line. His brother Matthew, the No. 17 player in the world who is on track to be on his second Ryder Cup team, has playfully called his younger sibling lazy on multiple occasions. Even Aaron O’Callaghan, his associate head coach and mentor at Wake Forest, had the word ready when asked about where his pupil’s work ethic used to stand.
“When I came here to Wake, the culture of the program was lazy and Alex was kind of a sheep in that regard,” O’Callaghan said. “He just followed the crew. Over the last year, we’ve had new players come in, some great freshmen, and quite frankly they were outworking Alex as soon as they got here.
“He really took notice of that. But he’s just a guy that if you encourage him to play, he’ll go play. If you don’t, he’ll choose the path of least resistance.”
Lately, Fitzpatrick has been encouraged far more than he’s been left to his own devices. And there has been a distinct change in his trajectory. Leading into the 2019 Walker Cup, where Fitzpatrick went 2-2 in his four matches, there had been a sense of disappointment – or at least of lofty expectations not being met – around the Englishman from Sheffield. Now in the past 15 months he has seven top-five finishes, including two meaningful victories against strong fields in the Valspar Collegiate and Golf Club of Georgia Amateur Championship. He played in the final threesome of the highly contested Jones Cup Invitational and displayed deft touch around the greens, falling one stroke short of a playoff. His World Amateur Golf Ranking has reached No. 12, the highest of his career.
There is little doubt that Fitzpatrick comes into his second Walker Cup as a core leader, a player who will be heavily depended upon if Great Britain & Ireland is to pull off a monumental upset this weekend at Seminole Golf Club. As a 22-year-old college junior, Fitzpatrick feels that the laziness label – or natural talent, whatever you wish to call it – is no longer deserved.
“When my brother called me lazy, he wasn’t wrong,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’m the complete opposite person to my brother. My family and people close to me know that. But since I’ve been to college and I’ve had people push me to work harder, I definitely think I’ve become the opposite to where I’m similar to my brother putting in a lot of hours at the range. I feel like I enjoy doing that now. I am enjoying working hard and seeing small improvements you get from each day.”
The new-found work ethic may put him closer to his brother in that regard but, despite being very close to each other, they are otherwise much different players and people. Alex is one to circle the par-5s on the scorecard, bombing the ball off the tee and relying on his ballstriking capabilities. Matt is a data-driven strategist who relishes in the chess match and patience war of a U.S. Open. Alex needed a lengthy college career to mature as a person. Matt, precocious from the start, had a cup of coffee at Northwestern before embarking on his professional career.
Matt now calls Alex someone “who is willing to put in the work” and says he hasn’t imparted much wisdom other than sharing a few course management ideas. Alex would probably like to borrow his brother’s Walker Cup record this week – Matt went 3-1 during the 2013 edition, a lopsided loss on American soil for GB&I.
“(Alex) is very long off the tee but his iron play is his strong suit,” Matt Fitzpatrick said. “In the final round of the Valspar Collegiate, he hit all 18 greens. … He’s good enough to succeed professionally, he just needs to make putts consistently.”
Of their differences, the most striking feature is in their personalities. To say nothing negative of Matt, Alex is gregarious, charming, vulnerable and transparent. In a golf world where interesting questions and answers are rare, the younger Fitzpatrick seems to have a thoughtful and honest answer to most everything thrown his way. And he’ll offer that same honesty with his emotions on the course.
“I much prefer Seminole to Royal Liverpool (host of the 2019 Walker Cup), although I’m probably not supposed to say that.” – Alex Fitzpatrick
For instance, he takes one of the most unpopular golf stances an Englishman could possibly have, something that would make certain appreciators of the game cringe: he quite emphatically does not like links golf.
“I much prefer Seminole to Royal Liverpool (host of the 2019 Walker Cup), although I’m probably not supposed to say that,” Fitzpatrick said. “I was glad to get away from links golf because it doesn’t really prepare you for professional golf.”
When asked about a handful of his GB&I teammates who have played virtually no tournament golf for the past several months leading into arguably the biggest stage in amateur golf – circumstances around the pandemic hindered travel for some – Fitzpatrick openly wonders for a moment if he should speak his mind and then does so anyway.
“I personally would think that you would pick players based on if they have been playing or not,” Fitzpatrick said. “I know I would play much better having played for the past six months instead of not playing at all. That’s just my opinion.”
Fitzpatrick was led to Wake Forest by Darren Clarke, as the former Open Champion had a connection with head coach Jerry Haas having sipped his own cup of coffee as a Demon Deacon many years ago. Alex came into school already a top-30 player in the world who had reached the quarterfinals of the 2018 U.S. Amateur, but he had largely reached that point on raw ability. Until his recent run, he would use his practice rounds just playing the course like any other round rather than charting the course to make game-plan decisions. On the greens, he focused far more on the result of the putt rather than the process that led to it.
What changed all of that was a little bit of everything. Fitzpatrick is close with his Wake teammate Mark Power, a sophomore who is also on the GB&I Walker Cup team, and Power’s influence has pushed Fitzpatrick. The same could be said for highly touted freshmen Michael Brennan and B.J. Rogillio, who both arrived to the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, campus more polished than Fitzpatrick. With the additional help of O’Callaghan, his brother and others, he started to take a more professional approach to the game.
Turning pro early can be a benefit to some, but the chance to mature with a longer college career is often underrated. Look at Collin Morikawa, a four-year starter at Cal, who is already a top-five player and major champion in the pro ranks. Matthew Wolff has undeniable physical tools and enjoyed some immediate success, but he is struggling through the maturing part of pro golf on a very public stage. Fitzpatrick admits he really needed his experience at Wake.
“Just maturing as a person, I think college brings that for you,” Fitzpatrick said. “There are young players who turn pro who don’t really get to that stage and then it becomes increasingly difficult to perform as you get older.
“I’ve learned that 2-over par might not be that bad some rounds. You just have to deal with that.”
In regards to this weekend’s Walker Cup, Fitzpatrick has more experience on Seminole than some American players. Despite GB&I coming in as decided underdogs, he is optimistic that his squad could surprise. Sandy Scott, the No. 8 amateur in the world, had to withdraw, leaving Fitzpatrick as the highest ranked GB&I player. Five players on the U.S. team are in the top 10 in the world – a sixth American in the top 10, Garrett Reband, was not selected, a sign of the impressive depth GB&I has to face.
“To be 100 percent honest with you, I think there will be more team chemistry this time then there was in 2019,” Fitzpatrick said, citing that this crop of GB&I players have played more golf together. “We’ll put up a fight and nobody will give up.”
There will be few players arriving to the match with Fitzpatrick’s confidence. And maybe, more important than anything else, O’Callaghan says his player won’t be overwhelmed by the spotlight.
“The thing to understand with Alex is that he’s not scared,” O’Callaghan said. “It doesn’t matter if he’s playing someone who is No. 1 in the world or a U.S. Amateur, Alex isn’t scared of anyone.
“Having that kind of mindset, he could be a real leader on this team.”
Not long ago, that wouldn’t have been the case.