Once Self-Described As Lazy, Fitzpatrick Changes Trajectory

Alex Fitzpatrick, shown during a Walker Cup practice day Tuesday at Seminole, hopes to lead GB&I. Photo: Sam Greenwood, R&A via Getty Images

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 younge...