He chose his words carefully and never called out his playing partner Adrien Dumont de Chassart by name, but his words echoed sentiments he\u2019s shared throughout his years on Tour. It\u2019s a tricky tension to tackle\u00a0\u2014\u00a0individuals playing for their livelihoods will always take the time they feel they need, while stroke penalties can feel hard to fairly dish out \u2014 Fitzpatrick has consistently called out the policing of issue, using phrases like \u201ctruly appalling,\u201d \u201ca disgrace,\u201d \u201cpathetic\u201d and more.<\/p>\n
Three years ago, following a big-time win at Harbour Town, Fitzpatrick took aim<\/a> in a Sky Sports interview. But he also acknowledged he was taking a futile stand.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem is, though, this conversation has gone on for years and years and years, and no one has ever done anything,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cSo I feel it\u2019s almost a waste of time talking about it every time. I have my opinions \u2014 they\u2019re probably strong opinions, but PGA Tour, DP World Tour, no one\u2019s going to do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Back to Sunday, then. While Fitzpatrick\u2019s day was smooth \u2014\u00a0he fired three-under 68 en route to his first PGA Tour victory in nearly three years \u2014\u00a0Dumont de Chassart\u2019s was less so. The 26-year-old Belgian\u2019s opening tee shot flew out of bounds en route to triple-bogey 8 and he made a second 8 at the par-5 11th; his handling of the latter took such a long time that Fitzpatrick, who\u2019d played out of turn in an attempt to keep their group on pace, took the unusual step of asking an official for help.<\/p>\n NBC\u2019s on-course reporter John Wood said that Fitzpatrick was \u201cperturbed\u201d by Chassart\u2019s pace, which he described as \u201cglacial, to be kind.\u201d<\/p>\n Rules official Orlando Pope confirmed on the broadcast that Fitzpatrick had spoken with an official and that the Tour had begun unofficially timing him; that eventually led to an official warning.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, just, you know, just not ready,\u201d Fitzpatrick said, referencing his playing partner, if not by name. He was drawing a distinction between making a high score \u2014\u00a0which happens and can inevitably slow up play \u2014\u00a0and playing slowly while doing so. <\/p>\n A week after heartbreak, Matt Fitzpatrick roars to Valspar victory<\/a><\/p>\n By:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re not ready to play a golf shot it gets frustrating after awhile. Particularly when you playing well yourself or you\u2019re in contention or whatever it is. It definitely knocks you out of your rhythm. Because you hit, you walk to it, you kind of think about it, you hit again, and you go.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere in particular that hole, then you\u2019re around a stretch there that can get a little bit quirky with different shots and stuff, so you have to be on it,\u201d Fitzpatrick continued. \u201cIt definitely knocked me out of rhythm I felt like for the next two, three holes. I was kind of chasing my tail, because I\u2019m trying to speed up and trying to keep us or get back in position, and at the same time you\u2019re obviously trying to win a golf tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n Fitzpatrick did ultimately win that golf tournament.<\/p>\n Chassart tumbled to T26 after a 74. Still, he avoided any slow-play penalty and improved from No. 97 to 91 in the season-long FedEx Cup standings. <\/p>\n It has been nearly nine years<\/a> since the last time the Tour last issued a stroke penalty. The Tour announced several potential fixes<\/a> early last season. Safe to say Fitzpatrick thinks those remain a work in progress.<\/p>\n But if given the chance, we doubt he\u2019d change anything about Sunday\u2019s winning round.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Fitzpatrick has never been a fan of slow play \u2014\u00a0nor the way the PGA Tour has handled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-542023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n ![\"Matthew](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/MatthewFitzpatrickValspar.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n Dylan Dethier <\/a><\/p>\n