Matt Fitzpatrick is feeling good and focused on family affair at Zurich Classic

AVONDALE, La. -- Matt Fitzpatrick’s full-circle family moment was missing something – someone.

His parents and girlfriend were on hand to witness his victory Sunday in the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links, where the family spent countless summers vacationing and playing golf. His brother, Alex, was not.

No, Alex was resigned to watching on a small airplane television as Matt stiffed his 187-yard approach for the tournament-winning birdie on the third playoff hole against Jordan Spieth.

“He made me pay $16 (on the plane) to watch that final round and the playoff,” Alex quipped Tuesday at TPC Louisiana.

A worthy trade-off given the circumstances. Alex, 24, was en route to New Orleans, where he’ll make his second PGA TOUR start thanks to the invitation from his older brother to partner in the lone team event on the PGA TOUR schedule.

It might be for that reason that Alex has no plans of asking for that $16 back. Or why the young Englishman was smiling ear-to-ear for much of Tuesday at his first PGA TOUR event since last year’s Valspar Championship. Alex will even admit it was likely his constant pestering, with some help from their parents and Matt’s coach, that finally convinced Matt to let his little brother tag along.

“He was kind of forced into it a little bit,” Alex said.

It’s worked out quite nicely for Matt, too, who called it a “no-brainer” to play the event with Alex. Coming off his favorite two weeks of the year at the Masters and RBC Heritage, this was a quick way to make it among the best three-week stretches Matt could imagine.

“It was always one I was looking to try and play,” he said.

Matt’s recent form suggests it's also one that the brothers can look to win, an expectation that was not there had you asked a month ago.

Days before the Masters, the reigning U.S. Open champ disclosed a neck injury that he’d been dealing with since the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. A slight bulging disk led to a “compounding of errors.” He couldn’t move as he did before, which affected his swing and his speed training and wiped out the progress he made in the offseason. His neck had flared up before, but those issues only lasted for a few days at a time. This set him back multiple months. From the Sentry Tournament of Champions to the Masters, Matt missed four of six cuts and didn’t make it out of the group stage at the WGC-Dell Technologies Championship.

“I've lost a lot of ground and definitely regressed quite a lot,” Matt said at the Masters. “So it's kind of we're back to the bottom again and just slowly trying to build it back up. It's just going to take time.”

Three weeks later, Matt admitted he was a bit more optimistic than he let on at the time. During the weekend before the Masters, he and his coach, Mike Walker, got together and had a “really productive week.” The things they practiced and talked about began to click. After pausing his Stack speed training, Matt got the OK to resume the work. That helped his swing fall back into sync. Still, he had no idea how it would translate to tournament golf.

“As stupid as it sounds, I felt like I almost finally understood my fault that tends to stop me from hitting the shots that I want, and I think that was a big breakthrough,” Matt said Tuesday.

Quickly the results followed: a T10 at the Masters, his best result at Augusta National since a T7 in 2016, and last week’s win at the RBC Heritage.

The rebuild to pre-injury form that he envisioned finally had some results to show for it.

“I feel like I'm slowly getting there if not already there,” Matt said.

That’s good news for the Fitzpatrick brothers, who want to make this week more than just a family reunion. Alex is currently competing on the European Challenge Tour in hopes of earning his card on the DP World Tour. But a win this week would immediately give Alex full status on the PGA TOUR through 2024.

“I know the golf that (Alex) can play is high level, and I think if I can keep my form going and we can gel well, you never know what might happen,” Matt said.