Nick Westby: Phenomenal Fitzpatrick enjoys most memorable time in 2013

With a touch of frost on the ground and the continent’s elite departing Dubai with hold-alls stuffed with cash, now seems an appropriate time to reflect on the 2013 golfing season.
Matthew FitzpatrickMatthew Fitzpatrick
Matthew Fitzpatrick

From a Yorkshire perspective, of course – you don’t need me to tell you that Tiger Woods is back to somewhere near his best, Justin Rose’s US Open triumph was a golden moment for English golf, and that Rory McIlroy needs to rediscover his magic.

From the viewpoint of the White Rose county, there have been the usual ups and downs that any game so difficult to predict and even harder to master throws up. We have arguably had as big a high for many a year with a young Yorkshireman winning the grandest amateur title.

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Contrastingly, though, we have also seen a stalwart drop off the European Tour and a likeable pro take his life in another direction.

We’ll start, though, with the highlight of Yorkshire’s golfing year, the rise of Sheffield’s Matt Fitzpatrick.

If I had the authority to name a golfer of the year, there is no doubt this eminently likeable 19-year-old would be 2013’s recipient. The young man from Hallamshire Golf Club has a phenomenal game to go with his laid-back nature.

If he plays golf to the age of 100, he would do well to match the feats he achieved in two short months this summer.

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When he turned up at Gullane in Scotland for local final qualifying for the Open at the start of July, he did so at odds with his game, but determined to go out there and play for the enjoyment.

And it was that relaxed attitude that transformed his season.

After claiming one of only three spots on offer in the Open field, Fitzpatrick seized the limelight with mature play and a level-headed approach earning him the silver medal at Muirfield for being the leading amateur. That achievement proved a platform for what would unravel at the US Amateur Championships at Brookline.

Over eight days and more than 100 holes in late August, Fitzpatrick bested the finest amateurs in world golf to become the first Englishman for 102 years to win the most prestigious title in the unpaid ranks.

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It is one of the greatest feats achieved by a sportsman in this country this year, let alone the best golfing accomplishment by a Yorkshireman.

While Fitzpatrick – who would also play in the Walker Cup – was reigning supreme in Boston, across America, Jodi Ewart Shadoff flew the flag for women’s golf. The 25-year-old North Yorkshirewoman, who plays out of Masham Golf Club but resides in Florida, helped the European team conquer the United States in a pulsating Solheim Cup.

With two top 10s in majors this year, Ewart Shadoff is a name to follow in the coming years.

Danny Willett, Fitzpatrick’s fellow Sheffielder, has been to the top of the amateur tree himself and scaled his own personal heights last year when he claimed his first win on the European Tour.

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But as the Tour Championship unfolded in Dubai this week without him, he will have been left to reflect on a year when he was unable to kick on.

A persistent lower back injury that dogged him for the best part of six months ruined his year, but going forward there are plenty of positives to take from a punctuated schedule, most notably his 15th-place finish at Muirfield and recent near-miss in Perth.

Simon Dyson would be forgiven for wishing 2013 could end now. Since reaching the top 30 in the world after a two-win season in 2011, Dyson has gone downhill quicker than Franz Klammer.

The Malton man showed flashes of his old self at times in the summer, but right now is embroiled in a scandal that could tarnish his image. Dyson stands accused of improving a putting line at the BMW Masters in Shanghai, an offence for which he was disqualified. He withdrew from the Turkish Airlines Open and faces a three-man disciplinary panel at the end of the month.

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How he defends himself there, and the judgment meted out, could be as significant as anything he achieved on the golf course this year.

Dyson’s old pal Richard Finch will be just as keen to see the back of 2013 as his old Yorkshire county team-mate.

Finch had a miserable year, losing his card after nine years on Tour last month and then failing to win it back at qualifying school last week in Spain, despite a promising start to the six-round marathon.

Through it all he attempted to stay positive and pragmatic, but reduced playing privileges and a future on the Challenge Tour beckon for the 36-year-old from Hull.

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Speaking of Hull, David Lynn who is from Stoke and supports Wigan Athletic, has had a house built near the east Yorkshire city with his family. He led the Masters briefly this year and also won in Portugal recently. Now an adopted Yokrshireman, he will be one to follow in the coming years.

John Parry can hold his head up high after a good first year back on the European Tour. Having swept to victory at qualifying school last year, he struggled at first to replicate that form before eventually coming good in the summer.

His performance in qualifying for the US Open at Walton Heath was the catalyst, and the fact he completed four rounds of the mental and physical test that Merion provided in the second major emboldened him for the rest of the campaign.

Danny Denison’s fall is one that provides a salutary lesson to budding professionals. A European Tour member in 2012, he lost his card as a wrist injury began to take its toll, and by this summer the 28-year-old had decided enough was enough and took a teaching job at Moor Allerton where he hopes to rebuild his career.

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A name to watch is Daniel Gavins, 22, who plays out of Oulton Hall. He will play on the Challenge Tour next season after finishing second on the EuroPro Tour. Hopefully he can help Yorkshire golf rise to the fore in 2014.

and another thing...

if the names LeVeon Bell, DeMarco Murray, Denaryius Thomas and Jamal Charles mean nothing to you then you’ve obviously not been as consumed by Fantasy Football as I have these past few months.

The football of which I refer is the NFL, America’s game, a sport I have enjoyed since the days of Mick Luckhurst and John Elway. But it has taken on a completely new direction this year since I drafted a team and joined a couple of Fantasy leagues.

I have enough going on in my life right now with a full-time job, house repairs to oversee and a beard to grow without having numbers and statistics accumulated by players over 3,000 miles away to contend with as well.

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Yet Fantasy Football is all consuming. In English football it is something you can be involved with only as a passing interest, but anyone who plays Fantasy NFL among you avid readers – and there’ll be a few closet ones among you – will understand just what I mean.

I seem to spend far too many waking hours changing my team and making bad decisions, and too many sleeping hours waking up to check my phone to see how my players are performing. Invariably, it’s not very well, but try as I might, I can’t tear myself away.