Matt Fitzpatrick Wins The Heritage After Hitting An Absolute Beauty On The 3rd Playoff Hole To Beat Jordan Spieth
Andrew Redington. Getty Images.
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What a tournament! The elevated events have been everything the PGA Tour could have hoped for so far and more. Each have produced great drama and involved big names down the stretch. Heck, Kurt Kitayama is really the only winner among them who isn't a certified heavyweight, and he had to ward off numerous to get the job done.
But anyways… the Heritage. Sunday brought us a tremendous final grouping between Fitzpatrick, Spieth, and Cantlay… with a few other studs hot on their tail. They went tit for tat all day with Spieth and Fitzpatrick stepping to the 18th tee tied and Cantlay a stroke behind. The status quo held, with Cantlay getting left behind as the other two went back to the 19th tee for a playoff.
Spieth held the upper hand on the first playoff hole, giving himself a better look at birdie than Fitz who knocked his to the back of the green. Fitz predictably missed his long putt, leaving Spieth a great look to win the tournament.
Awful. Thing had eyes for the hole until it didn't, and on we went to 17 for another playoff hole.
Each Spieth and Fitzy hit beauties into 17, leaving them around 15 feet for birdie. Neither could make, with Spieth just narrowly missing another putt for the outright win.
That brought us back to the 18th, where Fitz hit the shot above that damn near went in. Spieth hit his deep into the green and couldn't make the 40 footer, leaving Fitz the tap-in for the win.
Remarkably, this is only Matt Fitzpatrick's 2nd career PGA Tour win. Of course, he won the US Open last year and the US Am a decade ago and has won numerous big time tournaments overseas, but stateside… this is only #2. I think we all believed the win at Brookline last year would launch him to many more victories and it could be said that he has been lost at sea a bit early in 2023… but this definitely rights the ship. A lot. To the tune of $3.6 Million this week.
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What's more is that the Heritage is a tournament him and his family have held closely for years. They had been coming to Hilton Head since he was 6 and played Harbour Town with his father a few times during his childhood.
Big time stuff.
Great tournament and absolutely gutting for Spieth… but I'm sure he'll land on his feet.
Congrats to Fitz.