Matt Fitzpatrick spots golf rule break in awkward second with US PGA Tour rival
Matt Fitzpatrick has insisted that it is “nothing personal” following his involvement in getting Collin Morikawa penalised on the Hero World Challenge. The duo have been collaborating within the match when Fitzpatrick observed a ploy that has landed his fellow PGA Tour golfer in sizzling water.
The second of controversy arose when Morikawa’s caddie, Jonathan Jakovac, was discovered to have been writing notes in his yardage ebook. The notes have been written down when Jakovac used a spirit degree on the apply greens to find out the slope.
While using a spirit degree is not a banned transfer, the act of writing them in a ebook is a breach of the principles. After listening to discussions between Morikawa and Jakovac, Matt Fitzpatrick – Morikawa’s taking part in accomplice – introduced the difficulty to the eye of the PGA Tour’s chief referee, Stephen Cox.
Morikawa realized of the ruling – a two-stroke penalty – throughout his warm-up for the closing spherical.
Amid the controversy, Fitzpatrick has since spoken out in regards to the incident and claimed that it was “nothing personal” in opposition to his taking part in accomplice. “I wanted to use AimPoint [a putting statistics technique] earlier this year,” The 2022 U.S. Open champion stated.
I spoke to my placing coach, Phil Kenyon, about it. He advised me that he was fairly sure I can’t write the numbers down or use the AimPoint numbers. So I didn’t do it.
“Then obviously yesterday it happened and I asked Coxy just to clarify what the situation was. I asked the question and he was like: ‘Well, now you’ve asked the question, I need you to tell me what’s going on.’ That was it.
“It’s nothing personal. Whether it was Tiger Woods or whoever, it’s just I wanted to know because I would have used it earlier this year.”
Following the ruling, Cox shed additional mild on the difficulty by saying: “I met with the caddie to explore whether there was any breach and, after reviewing the documentation within the yardage book and the formulation of a putting system/chart, which in itself is not necessarily a breach of the rules, the manner in which you obtain that information and develop that chart is super-key. That’s why this rule is very complex in nature.”
The subject was additionally addressed by Morikawa who added that whereas he holds no grudge in opposition to Fitzpatrick, he’s unclear on the ruling and the time by which he was notified of the result.
“We made the mistake,” the 2021 The Open Championship winner stated. “From our understanding it was fine to use a level on the practice green and see how putts break and write that down. Obviously it’s not.
“Stephen said apparently to JJ this morning that it was a grey area in all this. Why are there grey areas? There shouldn’t be grey areas in the rules, right? That’s what rules are for.
“I was a little mad at Stephen. He told us to meet him in the locker room. I was waiting in there for around five minutes and he didn’t show up and this was midway through my warm-up. If you are going to tell me some news, I think you should show up on time.”