Matt Fitzpatrick bringing confidence to Masters a year after 'lowest point'

What a difference a year can make.

When Matt Fitzpatrick drove down Magnolia Lane 12 months ago he was 74th in the Official World Golf Ranking and had missed two consecutive cuts.

Little could he have known that he would not miss another one between then and his next trip down golf’s most famous road, with two victories and a starring role in a Ryder Cup triumph thrown in.

“Coming here last year, I was pretty lost,” he told a press conference at Augusta National ahead of the Masters Tournament. “I just wasn't playing well. It was basically my lowest point here, really. I just didn't play well or couldn't figure it out and whatnot.

“Obviously at that point, it's kind of, well, you don't know what kind of golf is going to come next.

“I think to be here today doing a press conference, because normally only special people get asked to do press conferences, there's obviously a big turnaround.”

After securing a top ten at the US PGA Championship, Fitzpatrick made four in a row over the summer – including at The Open – but European captain Luke Donad still wanted him to play more on the DP World Tour’s Back 9.

Finishes of fifth and sixth rubber-stamped a captain’s pick and Fitzpatrick enjoyed his best Ryder Cup, claiming 2½ points as Europe won at Bethpage.

Soon after he would win the DP World Tour Championship and after finishing second at THE PLAYERS Championship, he would enter the winner’s circle again a week later at the Valspar Championship.

All that means he is now World Number Six and, after ten consecutive made cuts at Augusta, he understandably arrives with confidence, if not expectation.

“It's definitely the most confident I've been,” he said. “I wouldn't say that means I'm going to go out there and play well. The key is obviously to have as low expectations as possible and as high a confidence as possible.

“Every year I feel like I'm a completely different player to the one before. I think coming in when I was playing my best, I guess, was probably 2023, but that year I had a bit of a neck injury. It was nice to win the week after but didn't really have much form leading up to it despite winning the U.S. Open the year before.

“This is definitely the best form I've been coming into this tournament. Yeah, just kind of trying to roll with it and enjoy that.”

Fitzpatrick has happily admitted that his work with coach Mark Blackburn and the resulting improved iron play has been a huge factor in his recent fine form and that could bode well at Augusta.

European Ryder Cup Vice Captain and analytics expert Edoardo Molinari has cited approaches from 150-200 yards as a key to contending and Fitzpatrick is hopeful of capitalising.

“I've always been a conservative player probably, in the right way, I would say,” he said. “I'm probably going to try to hit a seven iron to the middle of the green or five or six right of the flag or whatever pretty much every week.

“I think that's changed now I've been better with my irons and had better strategy. I think that was beneficial for when golf courses got really difficult because my strategy didn't change. I would just play my normal golf, and maybe guys out here probably played a little bit more aggressive than me.

“So when it did get difficult, then you couldn't just go two or three left or right or you couldn't go at it because, if you did miss, you were screwed, and I could kind of just continue my own game. So that's why I've enjoyed harder tests because I don't feel like I need to change much.

“Obviously having better approach play now over these last six, eight months, I can be a little bit more aggressive, but that still doesn't stop me playing away from flags because that's kind of what I'm used to.”