The Fitzpatricks Just Can't Stop Winning

Two brothers. Three wins in four weeks. One of the most remarkable stretches any English golfer has ever put together on the PGA Tour. Matt Fitzpatrick is playing some of the best golf of his life right now and this weekend he brought his little brother Alex along for the ride.

Let's get into all of it.

The Weekend Recap — Zurich Classic of New Orleans

The 2026 Zurich Classic of New Orleans came down to the final hole at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, with Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick needing a birdie on eighteen to win. They got it. One shot over two teams. Another trophy. Another week where the Fitzpatrick name is at the top of the leaderboard.

Going into Sunday the brothers looked comfortable. They had just shot a tournament record 15-under 57 in Saturday's best ball round, one of the most absurd rounds of golf you will ever see in a team format. Four shots clear heading into the final round of foursomes. The kind of cushion that should make Sunday a coronation lap. It was not a coronation lap.

The brothers fell apart on the back nine. A double bogey on twelve. A bogey on fourteen. A four shot lead became nothing in less than an hour. The Norwegians Kristoffer Reitan and Kris Ventura were making eagles. Alex Smalley and Hayden Springer had set the clubhouse target at 30 under. It was suddenly a proper tournament again.

But here is what Matt Fitzpatrick does. He makes the shot when the shot has to be made.

He rolled in a crucial par putt on fifteen to stop the bleeding. Then he knocked a tidy pitch to two feet on sixteen after Alex missed the green, saving the hole again. Alex hit a gorgeous tee shot on seventeen to set up an easy par and they arrived at eighteen needing birdie to win. Alex hit his approach into the bunker. Matt chipped out to about two feet. Alex made the putt, crouched down, and could not hold back the emotion.

"To win a team event on the PGA Tour with my brother, I don't know if it gets better than that," Matt said.
The Fitzpatricks finished 31 under on rounds of 64-65-57-71. The win secured Alex his first PGA Tour card, earned each brother over $1.3 million, and pushed Matt to the top of the FedEx Cup standings.

The Year Matt Fitzpatrick is Having

Let me put this season into proper context because I do not think enough people are fully appreciating what this guy is doing.

Matt closed out 2025 by winning the DP World Tour Championship, beating Rory McIlroy in a playoff on the first sudden death hole. He arrived at 2026 with momentum and he has not let up for a single week since.

He played The Players Championship in March and nearly won it. Made a bogey on the final hole to finish one shot behind Cameron Young. One week later he was back at Innisbrook for the Valspar Championship and closed with a birdie on eighteen to win by a shot over David Lipsky. Then came Augusta where he finished in the top twenty. Then Harbour Town.
At the RBC Heritage, Fitzpatrick took a three shot lead into the final round, nearly gave it all away to the world number one, and then stood over a 4-iron from 204 yards in a playoff with the crowd chanting USA all around him. He striped it to 13 feet and made the birdie. Scheffler said it best afterward. Anytime Fitzy needed something to happen, he made something happen.

Then he came straight to New Orleans and did it again.

The Zurich Classic victory makes Fitzpatrick the first Englishman to win three or more times in a single season on the PGA Tour. He now sits at number three in the world, a career high. He is the only three-time winner on Tour in 2026. He is number one in FedEx Cup points. And he is doing it with 13-year-old irons and a putter change he made a few months ago.
The comp that comes to mind is the kind of form we saw from Rory in 2012 or Scheffler in 2022. A player who has figured something out at a level the rest of the field simply cannot match right now. The difference between Matt now and Matt two years ago is not physical. His swing has not changed. His ball striking was always elite. What changed is something that happens between the ears and we are going to get into exactly that.

What Winning Does to Your Brain — And Why the Scramble Format Unlocks Freedom

There is a real psychological explanation for what you are watching from Matt Fitzpatrick right now and it goes deeper than confidence. It is a neurological shift and it is one of the most powerful forces in competitive sport.

When you win, your brain releases dopamine. Not just a little. A significant surge of it. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter most associated with reward, motivation, and the anticipation of positive outcomes. But here is the part that matters for performance. Dopamine also modulates the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for decision making under pressure. Elevated dopamine following a win literally makes your brain better at executing under pressure. You are not just feeling good. You are chemically more capable.

This is why winning streaks exist in every sport at every level. It is not luck running hot. It is a brain that has been reinforced by positive outcomes operating with more fluidity and less noise. The hesitation that ruins shots, the second-guessing that kills momentum, all of that gets quieter when you are running on a system that has been recently rewarded. Matt Fitzpatrick has now won three times in four starts. His brain is running on a level of neurological confidence that most players never access in an entire season.

Now add in the scramble format and what happens to that psychology becomes even more interesting.

The Zurich Classic alternate shot format is psychologically the most freeing format in professional golf and here is why. In stroke play, every single shot is entirely yours. The miss is yours. The double bogey is yours. The yips on a three footer at the worst moment are entirely, personally, humiliatingly yours. That weight of individual accountability is what creates the tension that ruins amateur and professional rounds alike.

In alternate shot, you are not carrying that weight alone. Your partner hits the next one. If you block a drive into the trees your brother is the one who has to deal with it. If your brother hits a poor approach into a bunker you are the one who responds. The accountability is shared and something remarkable happens to the brain when accountability is shared. The threat response quiets down.

The amygdala, your brain's threat detection center, is the thing that fires when you feel like a miss will cost you everything. It is the part of your brain that produces the tight arms on a downswing, the rushed tempo on a putt, the over-grip on a delicate chip. In scramble and alternate shot formats, the amygdala has less to fire at because the consequence of any single shot is immediately distributed to another person. You make a double bogey together. You make a birdie together. The emotional stakes per shot are structurally lower even when the tournament stakes are identical.

This is why amateur scramble events produce the best golf most recreational players ever play. You have watched this happen at your own club. The twelve handicap who chunks chip shots all year long suddenly flushes every wedge he looks at in the member guest. The guy who cannot make a four footer to save his life drains everything he looks at in the scramble. It is not the format making the mechanics better. The mechanics were always there. The format removed the psychological handcuffs.

Matt Fitzpatrick is a world-class ball striker who has been playing with the confidence of a man who cannot miss right now. Put him in a format that also removes the individual threat response and what you get is what happened Saturday at TPC Louisiana. A 57. A tournament scoring record in best ball. Fifteen under par in a single round of golf at a PGA Tour event.
The lesson for every amateur reading this is not complicated. If you want to play your best golf more often, you need to manufacture that same psychological state in your regular rounds. Play more scrambles. Play more team formats. Track your best shots rather than your worst ones. Build a mental environment where the threat response has less to grab onto. Your ball striking is probably better than you think it is. The brain is usually what is getting in the way.

What This Means Going Forward

Alex Fitzpatrick now holds a two-year PGA Tour exemption through 2028, along with entries into the remaining signature events, the 2026 PGA Championship, and the 2027 Players Championship. His quote after the win said it all.

"It's great to join my brother Matt as a winner. It can be hard sometimes when you're constantly chasing someone's accolades but luckily it's my brother so it's not horrific. I idolize him so I'm just trying to be like him in every way."
That is a genuinely great quote from a guy who just had the best week of his professional life.

For Matt, the question now is what the ceiling looks like on this season. He is number one on the FedEx Cup ranking and number three in the world, both career highs. The PGA Championship is next month at Quail Hollow. He has a strong history at that venue. He arrives as one of the hottest players on the planet.

The last time we saw a player stringing together weeks like this the name on the trophy at the end of the season meant something. It is still early. There is a lot of golf left. But right now Matt Fitzpatrick is playing as well as anyone on the PGA Tour and doing it in a way that makes you believe it is not slowing down any time soon.
The Fitzpatricks just cannot stop winning. Long may it continue.