Coach Mike Walker reflects on the major winner’s relentless desire to improve and the emotions of his Brookline triumph
It is the US Open triumph with its genesis at Augusta National. Mike Walker, the coach of Matt Fitzpatrick since the golfer’s early teens, was pacing the fairways at the Masters in 2020 when a stark realisation hit home.
“Matt was playing with Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas in the first two rounds,” Walker recalls. “I thought to myself, ‘It doesn’t matter how straight I can get you to hit a seven wood, it’s not going to beat their six irons.’ I remember them hitting shots into the 11th. Matt hit an unbelievable seven wood but the other two were just flicking seven irons. To get to where he wanted to go, he had to do something about it.”
