‘Start again’: After 3 rounds, major winner still sour on ‘too penal’ Open hole

The seventeenth gap at Open Championship host Royal Liverpool has been the supply of a lot of chatter this week.

The redesigned par-3, which performs roughly 130 yards, is super-short by Tour requirements, however potential catastrophe abounds. The turtleback-style inexperienced requires pinpoint precision, as wayward photographs will roll off into deep pot bunkers or a pure sandy space behind the inexperienced, which incorporates a steep, riveted face.

Matthew Fitzpatrick and his caddie, Billy Foster, revealed their disdain for the brand new design earlier than the event even started. Foster referred to as the brand new gap “a monstrosity” to Golf Monthlywhereas Fitzpatrick merely described it as “fascinating” in a pre-tournament press convention, refusing to elaborate additional.

In what is probably an instance of a self-fulfilling prophecy, Fitzpatrick was stung by the 17th throughout his second spherical, when his tee shot went lengthy. It took Fitzpatrick three tries to extract his ball from the sand, and he finally signed for a triple-bogey 6. Fitzpatrick then made a clutch par on 18 to make sure he’d make the minimize.

After climbing the leaderboard with a third-round 67 on Saturday, Fitzpatrick revisited his Spherical 2 catastrophe.

“I hit a foul shot, in order that’s my — that’s on me,” he conceded. “Was it too penal? I feel it’s too penal down there.

“I hit a foul shot, bought punished. On the identical time, I feel the punishment was a bit too extreme.”

Regardless of taking some accountability for his rating, Fitzpatrick couldn’t resist taking another swipe on the diabolical “Little Eye.”

“Begin once more,” he stated. “I don’t see what was flawed with the final gap personally. Yeah, I don’t see — uphill par-3s, I don’t notably like all uphill par-3s. I feel it’s just a little bit too extreme in a approach. I keep in mind taking part in the final gap a very long time in the past, the final time, the par-3 which went the opposite approach spherical I assumed was an excellent par-3. It was a very, actually good par-3. Yeah, that’s simply my opinion.”

Maybe considerably sarcastically, Fitzpatrick has birdied the opening in two of the three rounds he’s performed to date. What’s going to Sunday’s closing spherical deliver? One factor’s for certain: It will likely be “fascinating.”

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of feminine varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everybody on the masthead. She will out-hustle them within the workplace, too, the place she’s primarily liable for producing each print and on-line options, and overseeing main particular tasks, akin to GOLF’s inaugural Model Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview sequence, “A Spherical With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in each within the journal and in video type on GOLF.com.