Matthew Fitzpatrick has given himself little reason to complain over the first two days at The Open Championship with the Englishman set to be in the final group on Saturday at Royal Portrush.
Matthew Fitzpatrick will go into the weekend as Scottie Scheffler‘s closest challenger at The Open Championship. A 66 on Friday saw the 2022 US Open champion put himself in a superb position.
It has been a fascinating tournament thus far, with the world number one the overwhelming favourite to get the job done and secure his first Claret Jug.
But there has been one issue which has caused a few problems over the first two rounds in Northern Ireland.
Matthew Fitzpatrick comments on ‘ridiculous’ problem at The Open Championship
The first round proved to be painfully slow, with most players taking the best part of six hours to get around the links. And the second round was not exactly a great deal better.
Fitzpatrick is known for being one of the faster players around. So he has done extremely well to put that to one side and produce two sublime rounds at the final major of the year.
But after his second round, Fitzpatrick admitted that he cannot quite believe how bad the problem has become.
“Yeah, a combination. I think if I was playing worse, I think it might be a bit more annoying. I think when — my tendency is to get a bit fast when I’m playing well,” he said.
“I do think it’s ridiculous; the pace of play has been a combination of the way the golf course is, reachable par fives and all that normal stuff. But it starts with the players as well and starts with the rules officials.
“Obviously we’d all like to be round in four and a half hours, but that’s the case, and it’s five and whatever it was today. But that is what it is, so just accept that and try and stay as focused as I can on my own game and play as best as I can.”
Fitzpatrick was then asked what he would do to address the problem.
“I think it’s just impossible to answer, isn’t it. There’s so many different parts to it. Like I said, this golf course is perfect for it because there’s reachable par fives and drivable par four and whatnot, and other golf courses have long walks to tees. It kind of spreads out a little bit,” he said.
“Yeah, I think it is a difficult one. But I think players probably speeding up a little bit probably will help the situation, but yeah.”
Matthew Fitzpatrick assesses his own game as he prepares to join Scottie Scheffler in Saturday’s final group at Royal Portrush
Of course, keeping up with Scheffler is going to be a huge task for every player in the field over the final two rounds, including Fitzpatrick.
But it has been an amazing turnaround for the 30-year-old, who appeared to be in serious danger of not making Luke Donald‘s Ryder Cup team.
And he suggested that he is very content with where his game is right now.
“I felt like every facet of my game was on today and I felt like I really played solid. To take advantage of the opportunities I had out there was obviously really positive,” he said.
“Definitely, definitely. Giving myself an opportunity to win the golf tournament, but there’s still a hell of a long way to go. Obviously the aim of the game is to stay in it for as long as possible and hopefully you can pull away right at the death. I’m obviously 50 percent there. We’ll see what the weekend brings.”
It certainly would not hurt the tournament as a spectacle if Scheffler got off to a slow start on Saturday. Fitzpatrick will definitely not be complaining.
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