Leaders bemoan focus on distance

It’s a long way from Las Vegas to Wentworth, but Sin City was on the minds of joint leaders Shane Lowry and Matt Fitzpatrick at the BMW PGA Championship’s halfway point.

Open champion Lowry will contest next week’s CJ Cup in Vegas after a late invite, while Fitzpatrick noted with dismay the opening 62 from US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau in the city’s current PGA Tour event.

“I’m fed up of seeing everyone talk about it,” Fitzpatrick said of DeChambeau’s “bomb and gouge” approach to the game after he and Lowry shot 65s yesterday.

“I’m going to be biased because I’m not quite the longest, but at Winged Foot – fair play to him, he won (the US Open) and shot six under – the fairways were tight as hell and I drove it brilliantly, I actually played pretty well and I’m miles behind.

“He’s in the rough and miles up and he’s just hitting wedges everywhere. It just makes a bit of a mockery of it I think.”

DeChambeau topped the driving distance category on the PGA Tour last year with an average of 322 yards, while Fitzpatrick was 121st, averaging 294.

Asked if he wanted the game’s governing bodies to limit the distance achieved by modern equipment, Fitzpatrick said: “I hope they do. In my opinion it’s not a skill to hit the ball a long way.”

Lowry admitted the focus on distance had affected his approach, but a skins game against Graeme McDowell and Padraig Harrington on Wednesday got him back on track.

He said: “All the talk is about hitting the ball as far as you can these days, instead of just hitting the shots you need to...I’m best when I’m playing from the middle of the fairway, as opposed to playing from the rough.”