Matt Fitzpatrick of England made two clutch birdies on the back nine and hit a brilliant fairway bunker shot to within 18 feet on the final hole to give him his first PGA Tour victory and first major title in the 122nd United States Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. The 27-year-old Fitzpatrick, who has won seven times on what is now the DP World Tour, closed with a 2-under-par 68 to win by one stroke on the course made famous by amateur Francis Ouimet more than a century ago. Ouimet, who lived in a house across the street from the 17th green, upset English superstars Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in an 18-hole playoff at the 1913 U.S. Open. Fitzpatrick is now making his own history at The Country Club by winning both the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open on the same course.
Rising star Scottie Scheffler finished second three times this season, including one stroke behind champion Matt Fitzpatrick. Scheffler has won four times this season, including the first major title of his career in the Masters, and leads the FedEx Cup standings by a mile. Scheffler, who hadn’t won on the PGA Tour before this season, also captured the Waste Management Phoenix Open, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, and has finished in the top 10 nine times this season.
2021 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year Will Zalatoris had a 14-foot birdie opportunity barely miss on the final hole of regulation which would have forced a playoff. Zalatoris, whose only professional victory came in the 2020 TPC Colorado Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour, also lost to Justin Thomas in a three-hole playoff at the 104th PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., in May. Zalatoris, who was born in San Francisco and played college golf at Wake Forest, has finished in the top 10 of six major championships during the last three seasons, including another runner-up result in the 2021 Masters at Augusta National, one stroke behind Hideki Matsuyama.
