Maiden Challenge Tour win for Fitpatrick

Alex Fitzpatrick is a winner on the European Challenge Tour for the first time after producing an outstanding final day charge to win by five strokes at the British Challenge presented by Modest! Golf Management at St. Mellion.

The Englishman, who finished tied 17th at The 151st Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Club two weeks ago, registered a four under par round of 68 to go with rounds of 72-66-70 to reach 12 under par for the week and win by five shots ahead of Welshman Stuart Manley, Frenchman Tom Vaillant and fellow Englishman Ross McGowan who shared second.

The 24-year-old carded just four bogeys all week in testing conditions in Cornwall, and catapults up to seventh place on the Road to Mallorca Rankings to close in on promotion to the DP World Tour.

“I’m ecstatic,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been playing some decent golf and I’ve been putting in a lot of work. It’s just nice to see it finally pay off.

“Been an amazing week”

“Sunday is always tough. You know people are going to make a move and luckily I was the one that did. I couldn’t be happier.

“Over the past year on the Challenge Tour, I feel like I’ve put myself in contention quite a lot. I did it in India and in the Netherlands but not got it over the line. It’s been an amazing week and I’m very happy to get it done.”

“It was tense to be honest. I didn’t know where I was until I came off the 13th green where I holed a really good putt. At that point, I just had to know where I was. Our target at the start of the day was to get to 13 under par, and I was close enough.”

Scotsman Euan Walker, who won at St. Mellion in 2022, finished fifth on six under par alongside Italian Andrea Pavan and Englishman Ashley Chesters. Englishman Josh Hilleard and Hamish Brown from Denmark were one shot further back in eighth.

South African Casey Jarvis remains at the top of the Road to Mallorca Rankings on 1,131 points, with Frenchman Ugo Coussaud in second on 995. Manley’s second place finish this week sees him enter the top ten for the first time this season.

The Road to Mallorca now heads to Aberdeenshire, Scotland for the Farmfoods Scottish Challenge supported by the R&A from 10-13 August.