Matt Fitzpatrick roars into DP World Tour Rankings top three with magical maiden Major

Matt Fitzpatrick has soared up the DP World Tour Rankings in Partnership with Rolex after his emotional U.S. Open victory at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts.

The 27-year-old Englishman jumped 26 spots to third in the DP World Tour’s season long points race after holding off Will Zalatoris and World Number One Scottie Scheffler by a stroke at the 122nd staging of America’s national championship.

Fitzpatrick combined elite ball striking and clutch putting to sign for a closing 68 to claim his maiden Major Championship and first win on U.S. soil. It is an eighth DP World Tour title, notable among them the 2016 and 2020 wins at the DP World Tour Championship at Dubai’s Jumeirah Golf Estates, and comes at the scene of his 2013 U.S. Amateur Championship triumph.

Fitzpatrick claimed $3.15 million – the largest first prize cheque in Major Championship history – along with 1,665 DP World Tour Rankings points to move up to 2246.7 points overall. The pride of Sheffield is now third behind Zalatoris (2,572.8) whose consolation for successive Major runner-up finishes was leap-frogging Rory McIlroy (2,366.1) into first place on the DP World Tour Rankings.

Zalatoris moved up three places while McIlroy is down one spot to second after sharing fifth place at Brookline alongside reigning DP World Tour Number One Collin Morikawa. Morikawa, who closed with an impressive 66 on Sunday, has climbed 13 places into the DP World Tour Rankings top ten.

Other big movers at the U.S. Open include Ireland’s Seamus Power, up seven spots to 25th, former Masters champion Adam Scott, who moved nine places to 28th, and Jon Rahm who climbed 36 spots into the all important top 50 who will contest the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, again on the Earth layout at Jumeirah Golf Estates, from November 17-20.

Power and Scott finished T12 and T14 respectively at Brookline while Rahm, the 2019 DP World Tour No.1 and a two-time winner of the DP World Tour Championship, concluded his impressive defence of the U.S. Open with a share of 12th place.

Min Woo Lee is now also much closer to the top 50 bubble for Jumeirah Golf Estates after his 27th place at The Country Club. The Aussie, up 28 places up to 60th in the rankings, has been confirmed to defend his Genesis Scottish Open title at The Renaissance Club in East Lothian from July 7-10.

Before then, the DP World Tour resumes on Thursday at the BMW International Open at Golfclub München Eichenried where American Billy Horschel is among the headline acts.

But for now, the limelight is rightly focused on Fitzpatrick and his caddie Billy Foster who was also celebrating a maiden Major after more than 30 years as a bagman for some of Europe’s finest, Seve Ballesteros, Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke and Thomas Bjorn among them.

“The feeling’s out of this world. It is so cliche, but it’s stuff you dream of as a kid. Yeah, to achieve it, I can retire a happy man tomorrow,” Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick emulates Jack Nicklaus and Juli Inkster as the only players to win USGA Amateur and Open titles at the same course.

“Any time you’re sharing a record with Jack Nicklaus, it’s unbelievable,” said Fitzpatrick with the golden Jack Nicklaus medal dropped around his neck. “So for me to have that as well is incredible. He called me up down there just at the presentation to congratulate me. Coming from someone like that, it means the world.”

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