Matt Fitzpatrick isn’t losing any sleep over the PGA Tour’s battle for supremacy with LIV Golf.
The upstart circuit led by Greg Norman and backed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has fractured the Tour and taken some of its top talent, including three of the top seven players on the 2021 BMW Championship leaderboard. If you expand that number out, it’s seven of the top 21.
“Yeah, it’s still an incredibly fantastic field. The field this week is 70 of the best players in the world,” Fitzpatrick said ahead of the 2022 BMW Championship, held this year at Wilmington Country Club in Delaware. “Yeah, I think only three of them that aren’t here, it’s not a massive loss in my opinion.”
The 27-year-old hasn’t been bothered too often by the biggest story to hit professional golf in some time. He mainly just sees the discourse in the media.
“You just get fed up with talking about it,” he said. “My personal opinion, it’s like, right, let’s just get on with it now. Just want to play golf and concentrate on what you’re doing.”
Easier said than done for most, but not Fitzpatrick. In 18 starts this season, the Englishman has made 15 cuts with 13 finishes inside the top 25 and 10 inside the top 10, which ties him with Justin Thomas for most on Tour. Since earning his first major championship at the U.S. Open two months ago, Fitzpatrick hasn’t slowed down, finishing T-6 at the loaded Genesis Scottish Open, T-21 at the Open Championship and T-5 at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first leg of the Playoffs.
He enters the week having never seen the golf course tied for the third best odds at +1500 with Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Scottie Scheffler and Will Zalatoris.
“Fortunately this year, I’ve been guaranteed (a playoff spot) from the start. That was quite nice compared to last year, yeah, and the year before,” explained Fitzpatrick, who went on to critique the Tour’s season-long competition, noting how you can play well all year and still miss out on the final two weeks.
“I’m like a little bit uneasy with that. I think like if you’ve played well all year, you deserve to be, you know, kind of at the top or where you deserve to be. I think the Playoffs can kind of throw that out a little bit, which is a little odd to me.”
Fitzpatrick’s coach was texting him scenarios last week where had Sepp Straka won the playoff against Will Zalatoris, he would have jumped into one of the top spots in the playoff standings. Both had a laugh, especially after Fitzpatrick replied, “I won the U.S. Open, so I’m fine.”
“But yeah, it is difficult. In my personal opinion, I think I was laughing last year at the scenario that (Collin Morikawa) had such a fantastic season, and he finished outside the top 20 or something on the FedEx, and to me that’s like unfair,” he said. “And then likewise this year, (Scottie Scheffler) has won four times, (Cameron Smith) has won three times, and those seven events aren’t, like, small events. They are some of the best events in the world, and they are behind (Will Zalatoris) now.
“Not taking it away from Will, but I think it’s a bit too much. In my opinion, those two should be kind of running away with it and it’s kind of a two-horse race, and now there’s more people in the mix, which I get that’s the whole point, the Playoffs, it’s exciting. But as a player, when you’ve worked hard all season to then not be rewarded for the whole season performance, yeah, it is a tough one.”
“I don’t think it’s fair,” he added. “But life isn’t fair.”
