It’s probably the most-used meme and tagline in India when two friends or teammates are doing something well together.
On Sunday, at the Zurich Classic on the PGA Tour, brothers Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick were literally ‘do bhai, dono tabahi’ (two brothers, both destroyers).
The Fitzpatricks stomped to a 31-under par total in the only two-man team event on the Tour at the TPC of Louisiana. A day earlier, they had combined to shoot a tournament record 15-under par 57 in Saturday’s fourballs format.
The brothers have been on a tear lately.
Matt, winner of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai in November, has been in terrific form. On March 15, he finished second in the Players Championship. The week after, he won the Valspar Championship. The final week of March belonged to Alex as he travelled to New Delhi and won the Hero Indian Open on the DP World Tour. The second week of April was the Masters and Matt was tied 18th there. He then won the RBC Heritage, defeating world No1 Scottie Scheffler in a playoff, and capped it with the Zurich Classic win alongside his brother.
In these seven weeks, the 33-year-old Matt has climbed to No3 in the world ranking and banked $9.65 million in five starts.
More meaningful were the gains made by the 28-year-old Alex. The Hero Indian Open win was the first of his career and came in his 87th start on the DP World Tour, giving him two-year exemption. Less than a month later, he also secured a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour with the win in New Orleans. He also gets into this year’s PGA Championship, next year’s Players Championship and all the remaining PGA Tour Signature events ($20 million purse).
A couple of observations from the win…
Many of the big names stayed away from the tournament, which was poorly scheduled between two Signature events – RBC Heritage and this week’s Cadillac Championship. And yet, the Zurich Classic is a tournament that creates a lot of interest and stands out in a schedule full of 72-hole strokeplay events.
The first point of interest is how players form their teams. The most talked about pair this year was Ireland’s Shane Lowry, who chose to play with Brooks Koepka in the absence of Rory McIlroy. Matt was the highest-ranked player in the field, and for the fourth successive year, he opted for Alex. Indian American Sahith Theegala was alongside Aaron Rai, the Englishman with Indian roots. It just gets a lot more people interested in the tournament.
The tournament deserves a better place in the schedule.
The other thing I have marveled at is how the form of Matt Fitzpatrick has oscillated in the last two years.
In between finishing tied 5th at the Memorial in the second week of June 2024, and tied 8th at the PGA Championship in the third week of May 2025, Matt did not have a single top-10 finish in nearly one year (49 weeks).
In the 49 weeks since the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, Matt has won four titles, recorded a second place, and has had eight top-10s in 25 starts.
Matt has been so consistent throughout his career, the dip in form last year was extremely surprising. But then, as they say in golf and in life, class is permanent!
And this also happened last week…
McIlroy prolongs his break…For the second time in this column, I am going to complain about the scheduling on the PGA Tour.
If someone like McIlroy decides to skip two of them in a row, there must be an issue with the Signature events. The man who defended his Masters title, missed RBC Heritage the week after, and is now staying away from the Cadillac Championship. I do understand that it is impossible to make everyone happy with scheduling, but top stars like McIlroy and Scheffler have to be motivated by the Tour to play in its biggest events.
Korda is back as world No1… She won the Chevron Championship last week, her third major title, and moved back to the top of the Rolex Ranking. The fact that she did not win a single title in the whole of 2025, was a huge surprise. She has been in stunning form in 2026 though.
