‘It’s Nothing Personal’ - Matt Fitzpatrick Explains Involvement In Collin Morikawa Rules Breach

Matt Fitzpatrick has explained his role in Collin Morikawa's two-shot penalty at the Hero World Challenge, with Morikawa stunned to learn, before his final round in the Bahamas, that he had been penalised two shots from the third round 24 hours earlier. 

The penalty saw him drop from -10 to -8 before he had even hit a ball on the final day, as leader and eventual winner, Scottie Scheffler, cruised to victory.

Chief referee, Stephen Cox, explained he had to penalise Morikawa after Fitzpatrick brought it to his attention that Morikawa’s caddie, Jonathan Jakovac (JJ), used a device on the practice green to calculate slope and then added that information to his handwritten notes in the yardage book, which is a breach of Model Local Rule G-11

The decision frustrated Morikawa, who only learned of the ruling in the middle of his warm up after JJ consulted his notes to advise the golfer of a putt on the fourth on Saturday, which playing partner Fitzpatrick reported to Cox.

Fitzpatrick, who finished tied fourth ahead of Morikawa in seventh, explained: "I was on the green, I heard Collin ask the question and J.J gave him an answer from his yardage book. 

"I have wanted to use AimPoint earlier this year. I spoke to my putting coach, Phil Kenyon, about it. He told me that he was pretty certain I can't write the numbers down or use the AimPoint numbers. So, you know, I didn't do it.

"J.J, before we went out, explained why he did what he did or whatever. He said he had done his homework and he had gone out there and rolled the balls as what we were told you were allowed to do. I was like: 'listen, that's not the advice I was given'; I'm pretty sure he was given different advice.

"And then obviously yesterday it happened and I asked Coxy just to clarify what the situation was. I asked the question and he was like: 'well, now you've asked the question, I need you to tell me what's going on'. That was it. Listen, it's nothing personal. Whether it was Tiger or whoever, it's just I wanted to know because I would have used it earlier this year."

Fitzpatrick said he didn't speak to Morikawa about the incident afterwards, but sought to clarify with Cox what the correct procedure was.

He added: "It wasn't until I was back in the house where I was staying and someone was talking about putting or something like that. I was like, oh, s**t, I have that question. I texted Coxy and he then - that's where it went.

"I think the issue was he's been told one thing by one rules official and then obviously we've had another thing by another rules official. That's also not having a go at the rules officials, it's just obviously there's miscommunication somewhere and here we are."