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“I’d say a 10,” he said, giving the highest rating possible. “Because I’m leading the championship at the moment and I did everything well.”

It was that type of day for the Englishman, who made an eagle and slam-dunked a pitch for birdie en route to shooting 4-under 67. It marked his lowest career opening round score at a major and tied Jacob Slov Olesen and Haotong Li for the early first-round lead, a stroke better than world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.

Fitzpatrick, who won the 2022 U.S. Open, has never finished better than T-20 at the Open and he couldn’t exactly put a finger on the reason for his struggles. 

“I wouldn’t say I particularly enjoy playing links golf, like I don’t feel like – it’s just a grind all the time, isn’t it? I like a grind, but sometimes it’s a grind with low scoring, and that’s what I find difficult. I like hitting it to 30 feet and making a par and it’s a great par; you know what I mean?” he said. “For me, I don’t necessarily see links golf as like, oh, yeah, this is super easy. I can breeze round in 4-under. I shot 4-under today, holed an eagle putt, chipped in, and I still feel like it was a grind out there … I just don’t think it’s necessarily as easy as some of these guys make it look.”

Fitzpatrick reached as high as No. 6 in the Official World Golf Ranking but hit a rut since winning the U.S. Open. He dipped as low as No. 85 in May after the PGA Championship but pegged the Players Championship in March as his low point. 

“I couldn’t find the face with the ball,” he said. “It was just not good.”

Last week, he finished T-4 at the Genesis Scottish Open, his second straight top 10 after recording just one in his 14 starts of this season. He started working with instructor Mark Blackburn at the RBC Heritage and cited that decision as a turning point.

“I’ve just had more consistency, and from consistency, you can kind of build confidence and keep calm,” he said.

On Thursday, he poured in a 22-foot eagle putt at the second and three birdies against one bogey. He hit his tee shot at the 236-yard par-3 16th to the right into a spot of bother at the hole nicknamed Calamity Corner, but it was Courageous Corner for Fitzpatrick, who holed his pitch shot for an unlikely birdie. Using a lob wedge, he lofted his ball high in the air and played aggressively after seeing fellow competitors Ryan Fox and Hideki Matsuyama come up short. 

“It just came out a little bit harder than I anticipated and on the perfect line,” he said.

China’s Li, playing in his first major championship in three years, matched Fitzpatrick with a bogey-free 67. It marked his fourth career bogey-free round in a major and third at the Open.

Denmark’s Olesen was the other surprise co-leader. The 26-year-old pro, who earned a spot in the field at Final Qualifying, won last year’s British Amateur at Ballyliffin in Ireland. He holed 146 feet of putts in his opening round and chipped in for birdie. His opening-round 67 is his lowest score worldwide since March.

Scheffler, who birdied two of the last three holes to card 68, matched the lowest Open Championship round score in 25 years for a player who hit three fairways or fewer.

“I actually thought I drove it pretty good. I don’t know what you guys are seeing,” he said during his post-round press conference. “When it’s raining sideways, it’s actually, believe it or not, not that easy to get the ball in the fairway.” 

Scheffler’s score was matched by Englishman Matthew Jordan, who has finished in the top 10 at the Open the last two years. LIV Golf’s Lee Westwood, 52, shot 2-under 69 in his 90th career major and 28th Open, and Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson and Shane Lowry, who won at Portrush in 2019, are in red figures at 1-under 70. Mickelson, the 2013 Open champion, has missed the cut at the first three majors this season. It was his lowest opening round at the Open since he shot 63 in 2016. Mickelson made a vintage Mickelson par when he failed to extricate himself from a greenside bunker at No. 3 and then holed out on his next attempt for a routine par.

“That bunker shot buried in the lip, and then to make it, it was obviously a lot of luck,” he said. “It was crazy.”

Players in the morning wave had to deal with a rainstorm for much of the round. Fitzpatrick called it “more annoying than anything.”

“Anything under par on a day like this was pretty good,” Lowry said.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Matt Fitzpatrick rates round a perfect 10, co-leads at British Open

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