When Matt Fitzpatrick, the hottest young prospect in English and European golf, won his first European Tour event, the British Masters at Woburn, last week, it was a touch unfortunate that his coach and mentor, Pete Cowen, was on the other side of the Atlantic, working with another, more illustrious, pupil.
Never mind. They could keep in touch by text.
Cowen to Fitzpatrick, Wednesday: ‘Keep plugging away. That first one [victory] is just around the corner. You’ve got the game. Discipline and patience. Have a good week.’
Fitzpatrick to Cowen: ‘Thanks Pete. I’ll do my best.’
Cowen, Thursday (Fitzpatrick led the field with a round of 64): ‘Nice one.’
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Fitzpatrick: ‘Thanks Pete. Really appreciated the text this morning.’
Come the final round on the Sunday, Cowen was in Florida, working on the swing of Henrik Stenson, when he received a text from his wife, Fran, to say that Fitzpatrick had won.
Cowen rang Fitzpatrick, congratulated him and put Stenson on the phone. “Well done,” said Stenson. “You could make a good Ryder Cup partner.”
Cowen subsequently sent yet another text to his young charge: ‘Delighted for you. You’ll think I’m psychic.’
Fitzpatrick replied: ‘Thanks Pete couldn’t have done it without you. Promise I won’t change.’
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THE rise of Fitzpatrick, a most engaging 21-year-old from Sheffield, has been mercurial. After winning the British Boys championship, he won the US Amateur championship in 2013 and was thrown into the limelight. At The Masters at Augusta in 2014, he was paired with two former winners, Adam Scott and Nick Faldo, and missed the cut by a stroke. At that year’s US Open, paired with Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose, he made the cut as a 19-year-old amateur. He had already played in The Open at Muirfield in 2013, where he won the Silver Medal as leading amateur.
Early this season, his first as a professional, he missed six cuts in his first eight events as he found his way, but he was fifth in his second tournament, the South African Open. He then had three top-three finishes and was runner-up at the Omega Masters on the European Tour before his triumph at Woburn. At the start of the season his world ranking was 413th; it is now 59th.
On Thursday, still beaming in the glow of his success, he pitched up for a debrief and lesson at Cowen’s golf academy in Rotherham. Cowen, back from America, had already offered an assessment of his pupil.
“Matt’s been a good player for a long time,” Cowen said. “Outwardly, he may not show that he knows he’s a good player, but inwardly he does. That’s the difference with Matt. I’ve got better ball-strikers than Matt but not better players.”
Cowen coaches a clutch of the world’s top golfers, including four major-championship winners. He has also guided two lads from Sheffield from the junior ranks of his academy to world class: Danny Willett and Fitzpatrick. “You’re always looking for something different in a player and you can’t tell whether they have it until you put them on the biggest stage,” Cowen said. “Then you find out if they get stage fright, and Matt doesn’t. When he played with Mickelson and Rose as an amateur he wasn’t out of place at all.
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“Technically, he’s one of the best putters and the straightest driver out there. He’ll drive the ball on holes where the others struggle to use the driver. That gives him a massive advantage. He works hard and is improving in all areas, so it’s onwards and forwards.”
Cowen is sure that Fitzpatrick’s texted vow that he will not change will be kept. “He’s grounded; he’s from a good home. In fact, his father is my bank manager, has been for ages. And Matt’s not materialistic,” Cowen said.
When Fitzpatrick submitted himself for interview, he began with an admission that may surprise many. “I didn’t feel that I played that well at Woburn. In fact, I rang Mike Walker [Cowen’s associate, who also coaches Fitzpatrick] on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday and told him that I didn’t feel that good. I wasn’t comfortable with my game.
“On the Sunday, I couldn’t get anything going on the front nine. The putts wouldn’t drop.”
Having led for three-and-a-half days, Fitzpatrick had been caught and overhauled. As several players, including such proven winners as Graeme McDowell and Luke Donald, gathered for the charge, Fitzpatrick was in danger of joining the also-rans.
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“I knew that it was down to me,” he said. “I didn’t want them to get away from me. So I dug in. I had to make something happen.” Four birdies in seven holes took him back to the top of the leaderboard and he beat a strong field by two strokes, despite dropping a shot at the final hole.
Once again, when it mattered most, Fitzpatrick had proved his mental strength. But along with that fortitude is a touching and most unusual lack of worldliness. When Fitzpatrick was told that he had just won half a million pounds, he giggled.
Similarly, he revealed, he had not known until he reached the final of the US Amateur, and somebody told him, that winning it would bring him invitations to three major championships [he turned professional before he could take up his option to play in the 2014 Open Championship] as well as other PGA Tour events.
“I didn’t have a clue back then,” he said. “I don’t seem to know anything about golf except playing it. I just tried my hardest and tried to play well. In fact, there’s never been a point when I felt I was a really good player. I didn’t think I would win this year. I just keep working hard and things happen.”
Much more is likely to happen before the season is extinguished. Yesterday, Fitzpatrick flew to Hong Kong to compete in this week’s Hong Kong Open; that will be followed by the European Tour’s Final Series — the Turkish Airlines Open at Antalya, the WGC-HSBC Champions and the BMW Masters, both played in Shanghai, and the season-ending DP World Tour championship in Dubai.
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“The season is so busy,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ve not had time to sit down to work out how much I’ve got [he has earned more than £1m in prize-money alone in his maiden season as a pro] and how I’m going to spend it. I’d rather buy a house before a new car, to be honest. I’m quite happy with my Ford Mondeo. I still live at home with my mum and dad, my younger brother, Alex, and the dog.
“I think that I’ll save up a bit more and find a nice house somewhere not too far away, in Sheffield.”