It wasn’t the Players Championship, but more like March Madness—survive and advance—for Matt Fitzpatrick, who outlasted a Valspar Championship field that included a five-way tie as the final group played the 12th hole in the final round. A 14-foot birdie putt at the last providing the difference.
Fitzpatrick grabbed the lead momentarily with a 9-iron approach on the 15th that was followed by a holed 30-footer. David Lipsky joined him moments later at 10 under and the pair stood atop the leaderboard until Fitzpatrick’s final-hole heroics.
At the last Fitzpatrick smoked his tee shot 303 yards then knocked his pitching wedge approach to 14 feet, setting up the game-winner.
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Fitzpatrick was second in greens in regulation for the week. His irons are a split set of Ping’s where he uses the company’s i240 model for his 4-iron and the venerable S55 iron which have been out on tour for more than a decade. All have KBS Tour shafts.
But with Fitzpatrick, who won the 2022 U.S. Open, it always comes back to the putter and his Bettinardi DASS prototype proved the difference-maker. The putter, which Fitzpatrick recently returned to after a dalliance with a mallet putter, is a mirror image of the Yes! Tracy II model he used since he was 16 years old. Fitzpatrick first put the blade-style putter, which includes face grooves just like the Tracy II, in play in 2020.
“I think make rates with my blade was significantly better, but strokes gained in general was pretty equal,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think my make rates sort of between five-to-15 feet were much better with the blade, and that kind of convinced me to go back. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”
There wasn’t much to fix on the weekend as Fitzpatrick had no bogeys on the weekend and only four for the week, fewest in the field.
Coming into the week, Fitzpatrick took his Players disappointment in stride. “I feel like I’ve just not really got the most out of my game. Last week obviously got a lot more just not quite enough.”
This week, it was enough.
Here’s what Matt Fitzpatrick had in the bag at the 2026 Valspar Championship
Ball: Titleist Pro V1x
Driver: Titleist GT3 (Mitsubishi Tensei AV Raw Orange 65 TX), 9 degrees
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi35, 15 degrees
5-wood: TaylorMade Qi35, 18 degrees
Irons (4): Ping i240; (5-9): Ping S55
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM10 (48, 52.5, 566, 61.5 degrees)
Putter: Bettinardi BB1 Dass prototype
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com