HOW I PLAY GOLF： By Matt Fitzpatrick (2022 US Open Champion)!

Today we are going to get in the minds of a major champion. I've got Matt Fitzpatrick here. Hello Matt. How are you? Very well thank you. I don't know how well I'm going to be in a minute once I've lugged this bag up here but we're going to see how you play your golf and how you strategize your way around the golf course. So today I'm going to be your new, improved, taller, better looking Billy Foster. I think you told me off camera anyway. So talk me through this hole here and your approach. What type of thing Billy would be saying to you and what you do to prepare for a hole like this? Yeah so obviously this hole is pretty straightforward. The bunk is there, I think you told me earlier, 315 so I'm not reaching that today. But yeah we look at this hole and think okay well where do we want to hit it? The bunk is obviously trouble here, we don't want to run out of that. So yeah we hit it short of that and then play from there. So how much of your strategy is predetermined from your practice rounds or even in the morning before you play when you get the pin sheets and when you figure out the wind? Are you making your strategy then and sticking to it out on the golf course or have you got like a flexible plan? Yeah I mean obviously we've got a flexible plan. You think you've always got to stay that way but you know we make our plan Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday particularly if it's a golf course we've not seen before. We go through the holes as we play them and in practice rounds and we'll decide on you know what we're going to do. Is it a hybrid here? Is it four iron? Is it driver? Do we take out the bunker or not? You know there's a lot that goes into it so from there we'll decide on what we do the night before. Obviously from then it depends on the tournament situation as to whether you change it or not. So you might change that strategy tournament round depending on if you're chasing a lead, need a birdie, need you know need to be play conservative, just get it in the house or whatever it is. So it is pretty flexible. Right boss so I'm going to be caddying for you. I'm lugging this monstrosity of a bag, it's huge and heavy. We've got 316 to that bunker on the right. You told me we're not going to go in it with driver. So you're happy with driver? Yeah if you say so you're caddying, you need to tell me. No I'm happy with driver, let's go with it. So crikey that's heavy. Once you've teed up tell me the process you're going through, how do you aim? Are you someone who picks out a spot in front of the ball? No I just you know know where I'm going, that's my target and kind of go from there really. Obviously done a lot of practice before with alignment sticks to make sure your alignment's good. Yeah and then you just obviously you know bank on your practice. I can see you're keen to get going here. One more, are you somebody who shakes the ball with the shape of a hole or against the wind or do you have your stock shot and go with it? Stock, yeah stock. Stock draw with off the tee so that's what I'll do regardless. Occasionally if the hole forces a shape then obviously I'll have to do that and something I'm happy doing but it's just easier to you know to stick with what stock. Come on then boss, stock driver, straight at that marker post please. I like it, up the right half, we're in good shape, this is going to be easy. I think you just rolled in that bunker. Don't you worry about that man, it's not, this is going to be easy. Right so we're off and away boss, that was a great tee shot, I'm happy with that, I think this is going to be easy. Now we're walking, you do an awful lot of walking, so talk to me about the role of the golf shoe for you, how important that is and what you like about these Skechers Go Golf blade shoes. Yeah the thing, the biggest thing for me with the blade is it's the comfort you know, like I say play 28 weeks a year, four rounds ideally, Thursday to Sunday, practice rounds Monday to Wednesday, you're always on your feet you know whether it's playing golf, whether it's in the gym and you know these golf shoes just make a hell of a difference over the course of a year and you know I've not had any soreness in my feet since I've moved with Skechers which is obviously a huge deal and that's like one of the biggest things as to as to why I moved over to Skechers in the first place and you know these shoes are excellent. Right so we are approaching that second, our second shot after that wonderful tee shot and I've got the club yardage book here but I've seen on tour your yardage books are a lot more detailed and you're somebody who does an awful lot of writing in them aren't you, so when I see you at the end of the hole and you've finished out and you start writing stuff down in your planner, what are you writing? A bit of everything you know what my target is, what club, where the wind is, how the ball's lying below my feet, above my feet, where the pin is, all sorts of things. So you're writing about a specific shot you've hit that ball was above your feet, below your feet because you want to know what that did to the yardage? Well it could be what it did to the yardage or whether oh there's a common theme you know you're losing strokes with your seven iron but actually every shot that you've lost strokes the ball's been below your feet. Right okay well I need to practice below my feet because if you think about when you're playing golf the ground you're walking on now, how many golf shots do you hit where it's perfectly flat every time? The answer is probably 10% you know, so why are you practicing on lies that are flat all the time? So when you get home you've written all that information down, how are you extrapolating that or where are you putting that to make it useful for you? I have yeah I have a team of people so my sponsor Prativity and Eduardo Molinari with Arcos Golf, you know we sort of work together to sort of get all that information, put it together and you know give us the feedback that we need to in order to improve. Perfect well that's interesting let's go and stiff this second shot shall we? Right Matt we've arrived at the ball you've already given me my first tailing off for this running out into the semi but little did you know I think we've got a back pin so I was trying to take spin off there. So what's the first thing you do when you get to the golf ball for a second shot what's the first thing you look at? First thing is get yardage you know get yardage to the front and then obviously get yardage to the pin so you know where it is from there you look tall books we've got a lot of detail about the green so whether the slope short long obviously bunker right left hazard whatever it may be so then once you look at that you go okay we've got in this case we've got 188, 188 we want to land it because we know it's releasing six yards we want to land it 182 and from there it's 182 is playing what yeah so we've got a bit of downwind yeah we might have five yards downwind all of a sudden that's 177 maybe it's a bit colder a bit warmer in this case it's a bit cooler so it's probably playing 170 probably back to 180 there you go watch 180 call 79. Okay and when do you factor in lie have you thought about that already have you subconsciously already come up and seen that? I mean in this case semi it makes a negligible difference obviously if the fairway it's not going to make a difference obviously if it's in the rough you're thinking something that might be a bit heavier take more club or you could be a flyer dryer rough then obviously you've got to think about that. Okay one thing I've seen a lot of pros do is mark off certain areas on the planner where you just simply can't miss it to certain pins is that something you'd look at now you look at this pin and you'd have something marked on there you go but just at the back of your mind you'd be thinking we're veering slightly one side same deal you know for example if there's a water hazard at the screen you know you aim further left away from the pin there's a bunker and it's an easy up and down then you can go a little bit more aggressive so obviously you've done your homework in the practice rounds and then you can take that into account. I'm a great caddy of course I've done my homework what do we say about seven iron? Seven iron, wrong one. That's got a pattern grip on it. That's illegal. Right that's got a pattern grip on it we'll go this one instead that's the luck. Talk me through your pre-shot routine as you're going with it as well. Two practice swings normally and then yeah away I go. You're gonna need to move a hair right so cameras aren't normally that close. Right we're going on the side of safety I think that's heading to the left over to the green but we can work it out from there. Right so we've hit that second shot I think we've missed a little bit left of target maybe that was you can blame me for that one because I think I gave you the wrong line there. As we're walking up are you starting to think about what might lay ahead are you looking at slopes are you are you already getting a picture? No not really I mean there's this it's more like where's my ball how close is it before making a decision I feel like I get my best reads when I'm fully focused and behind the ball obviously you know there's no point thinking about it now I can't make a decision or certainly can't make a good decision from 50 yards away so for me it's just kind of particularly if I'm on the green if I'm off the green you're obviously looking at the contours for the chip and what that might you know what might you might be left with. Right Matt I've put you in a bad place here I'm sorry we've got hump we've got downhill chip what are you thinking? Um yeah this is short side so that's a severe penalty in itself and uh not a penalty for the caddy is it? At this point they're hitting hope it's a fine yeah. I absolutely played one he's got me out of jail and we are in there about six inches. That was an easy putt. We don't need a putt good caddying well done well done knock off Billy. That was a phenomenal cross-handed chip talking through why you've gone cross-handed and what you think the benefits are? Just consistency I feel like I know what's coming every time and that's been the biggest thing for me um that's the key thing in chipping you know what's coming each time you you know you hit your chip and then you can predict what the outcome's going to be um so yeah it's been really helpful. A bit unorthodox were you nervous the first time you put it out in competition or not? No no no no I've been doing it as a training sort of training drill for a long time and um obviously to take it into competition it took a little bit a few more reps beforehand but uh yeah I'm used to it now. Great stuff. Thank you.