You wouldn’t know it by looking at his scorecard, but Matt Fitzpatrick wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence after his opening round at the RBC Heritage on Thursday.
The Englishman, known for his blunt honesty, carded a solid 5-under 66 at Harbour Town — a round highlighted by an eagle and three birdies — putting him just five shots off Justin Thomas’ early clubhouse lead. On paper, a promising start. In reality? Fitzpatrick didn’t see it that way.
“I think everything was pretty solid today,” Fitzpatrick said initially, seeming upbeat. “I felt like I putted really well, chipped it really well, hit my irons where I needed to and hit the fairways where I needed to.”
But the tone shifted as the press conference wore on. Beneath the surface of Thursday’s tidy round lies a season, and frankly a stretch, Fitzpatrick is desperate to forget.
“It’s rubbish, simple as that,” Fitzpatrick admitted. “It’s been awful. Yeah, it’s been the worst I’ve ever played, in fact.”
The numbers back up his assessment. After a winless 2023 that produced just three top-10 finishes and a disappointing 40th-place finish in the FedEx Cup standings, Fitzpatrick’s struggles have only deepened in 2024. He arrived at Harbour Town having missed three cuts in his last eight starts and without a single top-20 finish this season. His world ranking has slipped from a career-high of No. 6 all the way down to 75th. The frustration recently culminated in a high-profile split from his longtime caddie, Billy Foster, following a missed cut at The Players.
Despite the self-criticism, Fitzpatrick’s round Thursday was a glimpse of the form that once made him one of the top players in the world. The question now is whether this performance was a flicker of hope — or a rare bright spot in an otherwise dismal stretch.
For Fitzpatrick, the answer remains to be seen. But one thing’s clear: the standards he holds himself to haven’t wavered, even if the results have.