A week after heartbreak, Matt Fitzpatrick roars to Valspar victory

A week after heartbreak, Matt Fitzpatrick roars to Valspar victory Dylan Dethier A week after he bogeyed the 72nd hole to lose the Players Championship by a single shot , Matthew Fitzpatrick flipped the script with a fist-pumping final-hole birdie to win the Valspar Championship by one. Fitzpatrick — who’d never birdied No. 18 at Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course in 11 previous tries — found the fairway at the finisher and hit his approach to 13 feet, setting up a look at 3.

He poured that putt in the center of the hole, punctuating the moment with an emphatic uppercut that electrified the surrounding crowd. When David Lipsky’s birdie try finished just below the hole some 10 minutes later, Fitzpatrick’s win was official. “I think the big thing was I felt like I was playing well,” Fitzpatrick said of his Players Championship bounceback.

“I was playing well going into this week, obviously wanted to continue that and I felt like I had confidence in myself to do so. Then obviously to do that over four rounds was special this week. ” He was sitting in the white-walled scoring trailer when he got the news and then fired off emotional FaceTimes to his wife and parents before speaking to NBC’s Kira Dixon.

“I’ve not seen [his wife] Katherine for three weeks, so I’m so excited to get back and see her; and my parents are coming out in a week or so as well. Yeah, it’s just such special people in my life and, yeah, just so excited to share this with ’em,” he said in that interview. Fitzpatrick’s most recent worldwide win came at the DP World Tour Championship last fall, but this was his first PGA Tour win in nearly three years — since the 2023 RBC Heritage .