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Scottie Scheffler<\/a> is used to being chased at tournaments. Normally, it\u2019s Scheffler out in front while his fellow PGA Tour stars gush about his relentlessness<\/a>, bounce-back ability, demeanor<\/a>, club-head control and course management<\/a>. More often than not, Scottie Scheffler is the hunted, with those behind him admiring<\/a> how the World No. 1 raced past them. <\/p>\n This week at the RBC Heritage<\/a>, the script is inverted. <\/p>\n Scheffler started Saturday at Harbour Town<\/a> seven shots behind 36-hole leader Matt Fitzpatrick but quickly closed the gap when he went out in 5-under 31 to vault into contention. When Fitzpatrick stumbled early in his round, Scheffler suddenly had a share of the lead as he reached the closing stretch of his third round. But then Fitzpatrick, who won the Valspar<\/a> last month and finished runner-up at the Players<\/a>, regripped the steering wheel with birdies at No. 9 and 12 to regain the lead. Scheffler closed with birdies at 16 and 18 to shoot a 7-under 64 and get into the house at 14 under.<\/p>\n When Scheffler signed his card, he was on Fitzpatrick\u2019s heels, then the 2022 U.S. Open champion birdied 14 and chipped in for eagle at 15 to extend his lead to three.<\/p>\n As Scheffler waltzed to a win last summer at the Open, Fitzpatrick stood in front of the media and remarked how Scheffler was \u201cin a different class\u201d than everyone else. On Saturday, as Fitzpatrick was polishing off a grindy 3-under 68, Scheffler assumed an unusual role \u2014 that of a hunter explaining what makes the leader exceptional. <\/p>\n \u201cFitzy is a guy that I think \u2014 I admire him because he works really hard,\u201d Scheffler said after a sun-splashed day at Hilton Head. \u201cHe\u2019s a guy that I see always doing stuff in order to play well. He\u2019s a guy that gets really into his stats. He\u2019s a guy that\u2019s going to check every single box that he can in order to get out here and play well.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a guy that when you look has always improved over the course of his career and made some changes in order to improve. You look at him when he first came out, he was a lot slower off the tee than he is now. He\u2019s got a lot of speed. He doesn\u2019t use it on every single shot, but he uses it when necessary. Not only is he a hard worker, but I think he\u2019s a really smart player.\u201d <\/p>\n Fitzpatrick increased his club head speed by more than five miles per hour from 2019 to 2022. He now swings it in the 118-122 range, where before he was in the 112 mph area. In 2019, Fitzpatrick ranked 59th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. He rose to 10th during the 2022 season when he won the U.S. Open. His game dipped in 2024, but Fitzpatrick is now back in the top 20 in SG: Off the Tee and ranked No. 7 in the world. Those gains and his current resurgence are the product of an analytical approach that is Fitzpatrick\u2019s foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHe works so hard,\u201d Hovland said on Friday. \u201cHe\u2019s extremely methodical. I think it\u2019s pretty cool to see other guys, they have their thing. They have their way of trying to get better, and he goes all in on that. He doesn\u2019t really care what other people say; he believes in what he\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n \u201cYou look at his career, he just keeps winning tournaments and keeps getting better. If there\u2019s a deficiency in his game, he tackles it and gets better, and I find that very admirable.\u201d <\/p>\n Did Players Championship fans rattle Matt Fitzpatrick? He has thoughts\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/span> Fitzpatrick will take a three-shot lead over Scheffler into Sunday at his favorite tournament on the PGA Tour schedule, one he won in a playoff over Jordan Spieth in 2023. There was a pro-Spieth crowd that day, and Fitzpatrick expects a similar vibe on Sunday as Scheffler tries to track him down. \u201cAs long as they don\u2019t shout in my backswing, then they can do whatever they want,\u201d Fitzpatrick said on Saturday.<\/p>\n He knows that a three-shot lead can evaporate quickly on Sunday against Scheffler, who is omnipresent atop leaderboards. While Fitzpatrick hasn\u2019t lived in contention week in and week out like Scheffler, he has been working on hardening his game in the cauldron. <\/p>\n Last year, he arrived at Harbor Town with his game in disarray<\/a>. A month later, he was in contention at the PGA. He faded. He contended at the Open<\/a>, which Scheffler ran away with. Then, he won the DP World Tour Championship, was a putt away from a playoff at the Players and won the Valspar. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s probably different for Scottie and Rory, who are in these positions a lot of the weeks of the year and in contention and in the mix,\u201d Fitzpatrick said of the nerves on a Sunday. \u201cBut the more you do it, I wouldn\u2019t say it ever gets any easier, but it might feel a little bit better, more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n Matt Fitzpatrick is 18 holes away from his second win of the season and third worldwide win since November. He knows it won\u2019t be easy to hold off Scheffler. But Matt Fitzpatrick is ready for the hard work ahead on Sunday; it\u2019s what got him back to this point. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Scottie Scheffler is used to being chased at tournaments. Normally, it\u2019s Scheffler out in front while his fellow PGA Tour stars gush about his relentlessness, bounce-back ability, demeanor, club-head control and course management. More often than not, Scottie Scheffler is the hunted, with those behind him admiring how the World No. 1 raced past them. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-Fitzpatrick-has-flipped-script-on-Scottie-Scheffler-at-RBC.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27968,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27966\/revisions\/27968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n By:<\/span>
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\n Nick Piastowski <\/a><\/p>\n
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