Matt Fitzpatrick was full of praise for European Ryder Cup Vice Captain and statistics guru Edoardo Molinari as the reigning U.S. Open Champion prepared to tee it up in the Italian’s home open at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club.
Fitzpatrick uses Molinari’s analytics platform StatisticGolf to hone his game and is happy to credit the system, and the use of statistics, in helping make him a Major Champion at The Country Club, Brookline, in June.
The Englishman tees it up alongside Molinari in the first two rounds of this week's DS Automobiles Italian Open and believes the three-time DP World Tour winner is the best in the business.
"Working with Edoardo Molinari - who is obviously a very accomplished Tour player and who has that experience - he knows about the game and he knows what to look for," he said. "He understands things.
"What Edoardo was offering in terms of what we can track is just so much better than what I was using before, as well as the additional advantage of me saying, 'oh, I'd really like to look at this' and he would be able to just build that into a spreadsheet and we could track that for a period of time or we could track that forever.
"He's open to making changes. He's always trying to improve his product and give better advice. He's worked so hard at it.
"I'm always interested in numbers, whether it's mine or whether it's other people's. I kind of like to know what's going on and what's good, and why someone is playing well and why they are not playing well. I just find that interesting and I know Edoardo is the same. He's someone that I can trust and get on well with and there isn't any better in my opinion."
Fitzpatrick and Molinari will have something in common this week as they both play in a field which features their respective brothers.
Edoardo's Major-winning sibling Francesco is looking for a third triumph in this event, while Matt's brother Alex is making just his second start as a professional on the DP World Tour.
Add to that defending champion Nicolai Højgaard and twin brother Rasmus and it is truly a family affair in Rome.
"I'm very grateful for the Italian Federation for giving Alex an invite this week," said Matt. "We really appreciate that as a family. I know Alex does and I do.
"To play the same tournament as him is really cool. I'm really interested to see how he gets on, being new to playing professional golf and he's still learning a lot now. It's an exciting time for him and hopefully he can build on it and have a good week."
