BROOKLINE, Massachusetts – This week’s US Open 2022 began with a discussion of the worst parts of professional golf and ended with a few moments that showed the game at its best.
Matt Fitzpatrick shot 68 at The Country Club on Sunday to beat Will Zalatoris and Scotty Scheffler by winning his first major championship at the same venue he won the 2013 U.S. Amateur Tournament.
It was a performance marked by strength and presence that we were not used to seeing from Fitzpatrick, along with a closing shot worthy of the golf course on which it was played.
When Phil Mickelson stepped into the microphone on Monday morning to address the rebellious LIV Golf League, which he helped launch, one of the greatest weeks of the year was spent. His grim-sounding shame penetrated the rest of the property and foreshadowed a future that remained undesirable.
Like it or not – and many have exclaimed their positions loudly and obscenely – LIV Golf is here to stay. All of these are players, cadets, agents, managers, media and staff discussed this week at Brookline. This shook the piers on which professional golf is currently sitting.
However, Greg Norman’s pet project cannot (and probably never will) penetrate the fortress, built around the 16th day of the year in which major championships are contested.
The first round on Thursday served as a refuge, as did the next 54 holes.
The US Open rankings over the weekend only exacerbated this reality. Colin Morikawa took the lead in the middle when he tried to become the first golfer to win three major tournaments in his first 11 such starts since the start of the Masters in 1934. He disappeared by 77 on Saturday, but was replaced by the top three players in the world. At one point on Sunday afternoon, Scotty Scheffler (№ 1), John Ram (№ 2) and Rory McIlroy (№ 3) were among the top four.
Ram and McIlroy could not take advantage of their opportunities, and McIlroy squandered one of the great plays of his career after leading on the field with nearly 10 accumulated shots. Scheffler held out for a long time trying to score a rare double at the Masters-US Open, and Fitzpatrick led Zalatoris with one on the turn, both looking for their first career specials and winning the PGA Tour.
For the next two hours, a week that was for everything but golf, then brought perhaps the best golf we’ve seen this year. A two-shot swing at number 11 gave Zalaris a two-shot lead over Fitzpatrick. Zalatoris, now a three-time runner-up, snatched the ball from the cup and eagerly clenched his fist, throwing himself like a man devilishly set to redeem the loss of Justin Thomas to Justin Thomas a month ago.
Fitzpatrick responded to number 13 with a right hook, which refuted the meekness with which he usually behaves. The tournament was a draw again. Pars number 14 led to a long wait for the 15th, as fans huddled in the narrow alley overlooking the final stretch, where turkeys (literally turkeys) often circled this week.
Fitzpatrick stared at the future. What was he thinking while he was at the top of the US Open with the man standing next to him? Maybe the past when he won Am here in 2013. Maybe the future and the four holes he had left to break the samples. After the event, he explained how difficult it is to stop imagining the trophy in his hands.
“You’re just trying to say to yourself, ‘Stop it.’ Just rest. Just stop thinking about it. It’s not there yet, “Fitzpatrick said.
He wasn’t there yet, but after that hole, it was almost his job to hold him. Fitzpatrick splashed his way to the right, but somehow stood up and descended amid a horseshoe of 220 yards to reach 6 below, while Zalatoris was afraid to drop two back.
“It was one of the best shots I made all day,” Fitzpatrick said. “It was a great shot. To do that and take advantage of the rest I had was fantastic.”
Fitzpatrick barely parried, and that was barely enough. After an easy 3-4 series at Nos. 16 and 17, he struck with that blow at No. 18 in the fairway bunker. As he walked towards him, Boston fans broke up with the police behind them and surrounded the former and future champion.
Fitzpatrick then made “one of the best shots I’ve ever hit” from this bunker, drew two and almost missed a Zalatoris bird that would send the tournament into a two-hole playoff. As soon as Zalatoris’s blow passed the hole, Fitzpatrick turned to Kadie Billy Foster, who was already crying.
There was chaos, as always at the end of major championships. Rory McIlroy was there to hug his Ryder Cup teammate. Fitzpatrick’s brother Alex, who was framing for him this morning in 2013, was in tears. Fitzpatrick hugged his father on Father’s Day; they were both barely breathing.
This was emblematic of one of the great extended finals of a major championship in the last decade. While the main players may not be very big winners or future captains of the Ryder Cup, the end of the week was less about their applause and more about what the most unadulterated version of this game looks like.
This is not the home of golf, but in the United States you don’t have to choose a better or more original host site from The Country Club. This is one of the five founding clubs of the United States Golf Association, which hosted the tournament this week. The oldest places often host the greatest golf.
It is difficult to explain to the uninitiated how to play for the first prize of $ 3.15 million is somehow the purest form of sport. However, being among the last few couples in the back nine in the dispute on major championship Sundays is probably the least thought-out position. Boston’s dark gray background made the scene as raw as it seemed.
Golf has been feeling so manipulated and choreographed lately. It felt impromptu and wild.
He felt it mattered.
It was also appropriate that in a year when players were trying to play the system to understand how they could work less and earn more, Brooklyn thrived on the player who worked on his game the most. Fitzpatrick transformed his body and his game. The numbers do not lie.
This week he finished the T16 off-road driving, which doesn’t sound like much until you find out he ranked the T127 in last year’s PGA Tour. He overtook Thomas and McIlroy this week. He also punished fairways, which is indicative of a versatile game that is the best it has ever been. Fitzpatrick has a year of career in each category, except for the release, which portends a future in which victory can be memorized.
He didn’t even have to rely on a gossip he often relied on. He finished 42nd in the throw, while McIlroy finished first. If you had said these statistics on Monday and who won the event, you would have won a lot of money.
Fitzpatrick proudly paraded the US Open trophy throughout the property as he jumped from interview to interview on Sunday night. His answers were mostly benevolent and repetitive.
However, one comment stood out. It served as a perfect volley for players who spent the early part of the week defending the business decisions they made when joining LIV Golf and potentially giving up the opportunity to play in future major championships.
“The feeling is out of this world,” Fitzpatrick said as he held the US Open trophy in the same place his cousin once held it. “It’s such a cliché, but it’s something you dream of as a child. Yes, to achieve it, I can retire a happy man tomorrow.”
The last two weeks have been around, as PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a recent letter to players, “money, money, money”. We will return to this conversation on Monday and beyond, as – if you believe the rumors circulating in Brooklyn – several former big winners and potential future ones are planning to jump in and connect with the rival of the PGA Tour.
For four days, however – and especially for the last nine holes on Sunday – we shared an experience that all the money in the world could not buy: to fight for and win a big championship.
In a world where everything seems and everyone can be bought, the joy and full enjoyment of this experience is simply impossible to cash in on.
Rick Hemann, Patrick MacDonald and Kyle Porter summarize the US Open 2022. Follow and listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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