A joyous Matt Fitzpatrick said he felt “absolutely incredible” as both he and Rory McIlroy ran riot in Rome to exorcise Ryder Cup ghosts .
The pair embraced with the longest hug on the 15th, savouring in a magnificent afternoon to forget respective tales of despair in 2021.
McIlroy had been in tears on that final day at Whistling Straits, but showed glimpses of his imperious best to secure maximum points in his pairings.
However, the biggest plaudits of the day were saved for Fitzpatrick, who ended an eight year winless streak with the all-round performance of the day. His captain, Luke Donald, went as far as declaring he was “carrying” McIlroy through the afternoon such was his dominance.
For an extended period at Marco Simone, all McIlroy could do was laugh, stand back and applaud. On a record-equalling day for Europe, Fitzpatrick embarked on one of the great scoring stretches in the history of this golf match. “I was having goosebumps,” Fitzpatrick said after six straight one-putts in a birdie-birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie run, with a total of 60 feet of putts made. “I’d make a putt and the crowd would go crazy.”
Some redemption act after five straight defeats across away matches in 2016 and 2021. “The big thing is to not try too hard,” he had emphasised before joining the action at Marco Simone.
It was the first time Fitzpatrick had played fourballs at a Ryder Cup. But joining forces with McIlroy, already confident after sweeping his successful pairing in the foursomes with Tommy Fleetwood, the pair swept aside Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele 5 and 3 in the afternoon fourballs.
“I was laughing to Rory, (saying) ‘What do we do here then?’” he said. McIlroy replied: “For the first nine holes, I was trying to hang on to this man’s coattails. I said to him walking up No. 10, ‘At least I contributed twice.’”
