PGA Tour caddie Billy Foster recently revealed the blunt chats he had to have with Matt Fitzpatrick after the Englishman lost his confidence earlier this season.
Foster revealed the information when speaking to BoyleSports about Golf Betting.
Foster has worked for Hall of Famers like Tiger Woods and Seve Ballesteros, and most recently works for Fitzpatrick.
He was on the bag for the 28-year-old when he won the US Open last summer at The Country Club in Massachusetts for his maiden major championship.
However, despite the impressive win last June, Foster revealed that Fitzpatrick went through a period earlier this season where he lost his confidence. Though, he's since regained it.
While speaking to BoyleSports about Golf Bettingand his PGA Tour career, he said:
“He’s in pretty good shape. You’ve got to get realistic about these things. The start of the season wasn’t great. He had a chance to win in Maui. He was in the last group on Sunday with Morikawa and he didn’t play his best and finished seventh.
“Apart from that, for him, he had a poor run for a couple of months and you could see he was losing a bit of confidence and tried to change a few things. So we had a couple of sit down chats, we were bluntly honest and constructive and he's moved on and played pretty well at the Masters finishing in the top ten.
“Then obviously he wins at Hilton Head. It’s almost like the tougher situation, the tougher the golf course, the harder it is to play, the more intensive it is, that’s where he excels. It’s almost like he’s in a little trance as such, he’s really, really cool and disciplined and the tougher it gets, the better he plays.”
Fitzpatrick, from Sheffield, started the PGA Tour season off with a string of top-20s in late 2022, but missed four cuts across February and March.
However, after a tie for 10th at The Masters in Augusta last month, Fitzpatrick regained his form and followed it up with his second career win on the PGA Tour and ninth internationally at the RBC Heritage.
He defeated defending champion Jordan Spieth in a playoff.
Foster added that Fitzpatrick is "by far the most professional player" he's ever worked for.
“His work ethic is like no other. The way he goes about plotting how to play the golf course along with me, he does a lot of his own notes as well. And just the way he logs every shot he ever hits on the practice he sticks to his strict routines that don't change. He literally logs every shot, how far it's gone left, how far it's gone right, how far past the flag, even when he’s at practice.
“He logs it all into his spreadsheet on the computer and it might be this one little thing that maybe his seven iron is off, or he’s hitting his five iron too far left.
“He's constantly trying to find that 0.5% that’s gonna make him that tiny bit better. If it saves him one shot, it might just be the tone shot that wins him a Major Championship. And that's where he operates. And it's not everybody's cup of tea. It would drive me insane, absolutely bonkers.
“A lot of players couldn't do that. But he's different. He’s meticulous in the way he thinks. He's really professional. And he deserves everything he gets to be quite honest.”
Foster and Fitzpatrick are in Rochester, New York this week for the PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club where Fitzpatrick looks to win his second major championship.
