Alex Fitzpatrick’s 2023 season was something else. A year ago, the Hallamshire golfer was setting out on the Challenge Tour, a schedule he had never played before, having turned pro just six months earlier. Now he has already successfully played his way off Europe’s second-tier tour and, thanks to some similarly brilliant play on the main tour, has a category that will get him into all the big events this year.
Fitzpatrick first entered our consciousness when, as a 14-year-old, he was on his brother Matt’s bag when he won the US Amateur at Brookline in 2013. Alex twice played in the Walker Cup and reached as high as fourth in the world as an amateur. Like his older brother, he’s as normal and unassuming as anyone in the game, conversation flows easily and he brings a nice energy to things, on and off the course.
There has been one win as a professional, at last year’s British Challenge at St Mellion, and he is now fast approaching the world’s top 100. As for Majors, we saw plenty of Alex, and the Fitzpatrick parents, outside the ropes as Matt landed the US Open at Brookline in 2022, but now Alex has tasted Major golf himself. At Royal Liverpool, he shot a six-under 65 on the Saturday, a score
