Matthew Fitzpatrick has never been a fan of slow play — nor the way the PGA Tour has handled the problem.
So it was only fitting that his latest Tour win came with an extra hurdle: His playing partner’s pace.
“That was really frustrating. It was slow today. I felt like there was a lot of stop-start,” Fitzpatrick said after his win at the Valspar Championship.
He chose his words carefully and never called out his playing partner Adrien Dumont de Chassart by name, but his words echoed sentiments he’s shared throughout his years on Tour. It’s a tricky tension to tackle — individuals playing for their livelihoods will always take the time they feel they need, while stroke penalties can feel hard to fairly dish out — Fitzpatrick has consistently called out the policing of issue, using phrases like “truly appalling,” “a disgrace,” “pathetic” and more.
Three years ago, following a big-time win at Harbour Town, Fitzpatrick took aim in a Sky Sports interview. But he also acknowledged he was taking a futile stand.
“The problem is, though, this conversation has gone on for years and years and years, and no one has ever done anything,” he said at the time. “So I feel it’s almost a waste of time talking about it every time. I have my opinions — they’re probably strong opinions, but PGA Tour, DP World Tour, no one’s going to do anything about it.”
Back to Sunday, then. While Fitzpatrick’s day was smooth — he fired three-under 68 en route to his first PGA Tour victory in nearly three years — Dumont de Chassart’s was less so. The 26-year-old Belgian’s opening tee shot flew out of bounds en route to triple-bogey 8 and he made a second 8 at the par-5 11th; his handling of the latter took such a long time that Fitzpatrick, who’d played out of turn in an attempt to keep their group on pace, took the unusual step of asking an official for help.
NBC’s on-course reporter John Wood said that Fitzpatrick was “perturbed” by Chassart’s pace, which he described as “glacial, to be kind.”
Rules official Orlando Pope confirmed on the broadcast that Fitzpatrick had spoken with an official and that the Tour had begun unofficially timing him; that eventually led to an official warning.
“Yeah, just, you know, just not ready,” Fitzpatrick said, referencing his playing partner, if not by name. He was drawing a distinction between making a high score — which happens and can inevitably slow up play — and playing slowly while doing so.
“When you’re not ready to play a golf shot it gets frustrating after awhile. Particularly when you playing well yourself or you’re in contention or whatever it is. It definitely knocks you out of your rhythm. Because you hit, you walk to it, you kind of think about it, you hit again, and you go.
“There in particular that hole, then you’re around a stretch there that can get a little bit quirky with different shots and stuff, so you have to be on it,” Fitzpatrick continued. “It definitely knocked me out of rhythm I felt like for the next two, three holes. I was kind of chasing my tail, because I’m trying to speed up and trying to keep us or get back in position, and at the same time you’re obviously trying to win a golf tournament.”
Fitzpatrick did ultimately win that golf tournament.
Chassart tumbled to T26 after a 74. Still, he avoided any slow-play penalty and improved from No. 97 to 91 in the season-long FedEx Cup standings.
It has been nearly nine years since the last time the Tour last issued a stroke penalty. The Tour announced several potential fixes early last season. Safe to say Fitzpatrick thinks those remain a work in progress.
But if given the chance, we doubt he’d change anything about Sunday’s winning round.
