Perhaps one of the most impressive and most underrated performances at the 2023 Ryder Cup came from Matthew Fitzpatrick on Friday afternoon as he seemed to find the bottom of the cup every time he looked at a putt in that session.
On that occasion, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Rory McIlroy beat Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele 5&3. It was a particularly significant result for the Englishman who had failed to take a single point from either of his previous two appearances in the Ryder Cup.
Certainly, 2022 and 2023 showed how Fitzpatrick had transformed his game. He added significant distance, and that led to the 30-year-old winning the US Open at Brookline, while he won both the RBC Heritage and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship the following year.
However, 2024 was much tougher for Fitzpatrick. He had just three top 10s on the PGA Tour, while he did not even make it to the Tour Championship. And it seems that he has potentially gone backwards in certain aspects of his game.
What was ‘interesting’ about Matthew Fitzpatrick’s decline in 2024
Speaking on The First Cut Golf Podcast, Patrick McDonald suggested that Fitzpatrick started to have a difficult time with everything up until he reached the green last year.
“I think the positive for Fitzpatrick is he’s always been kind of the guy at every level: US Amateur champion, good on the DP World Tour, obviously took him a bit of time to win on the PGA Tour, with that coming at the US Open and then winning the RBC Heritage the year after,” he said.
“I think what’s interesting is he reverted back to the player he was at the beginning of his career at the end of the season, where it’s just all putting. And he turned into a very poor driver, and a very poor iron player. And so, I’m not sure there was anything injury related, I don’t think so, because he played a ton of golf to end the year.
“I think it was just poor form, so I think the one positive for Fitzpatrick is his pedigree throughout his golfing career has always been towards the high end. So you would think that he bounces back, but I would need to see something to indicate first to have any confidence.”
How Fitzpatrick’s stats compared with the rest of the PGA Tour in 2024
Fitzpatrick was indeed one of the best putters on the PGA Tour in 2024. But that was the one strokes gained category where he found himself inside the top 25.
| Strokes gained category | Matthew Fitzpatrick’s PGA Tour rank (2024) |
| Off the tee | 102nd |
| Tee to green | 108th |
| Approach play | 127th |
| Around the green | 79th |
| Putting | 23rd |
| Total | 60th |
In fact, he was outside the top 100 off the tee and for his approach game. When you consider that Scottie Scheffler was only outside the top 20 for his putting, it is clear that Fitzpatrick’s weaknesses are going to cost him if he does not address them.
But as McDonald notes, Fitzpatrick is someone who is prepared to fight. You would struggle to find anyone who delves into their game in more detail. And few would have picked him out to win a US Open after he failed to win a point at both the 2016 and 2021 Ryder Cups on American soil.
So it should not come as a surprise if he manages to put his 2024 behind him and get back to a very high level again in the future.
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