Newly crowned Heritage golf champion Matt Fitzpatrick will team up with brother Alex for the fourth time as they seek to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the only team competition among 45 official stops along the PGA Tour season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The brothers are favoured to win the title this time, to erase their unremarkable previous runs in the tournament. They had finished tied-ninth and tied eleventh in their first two appearances and missed the cut last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both brothers come into the tournament with morale boosting victories in their bags. Matt, the former US Open champion, defeated Scottie Scheffler in playoff at the Heritage while Alex won the Indian Open three weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Zurich Classic, starting on Thursday, is a unique event but does not offer any ranking points because of its format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first and third rounds are Four-ball (or better ball). The lower score among each teammate will be penciled in as the duo\u2019s singular score for the hole. Aggregates in the low 60s are expected. In this format last year, Isaiah Salinda-Kevin Velo delivered a tournament-record 14-under 58 in the opening round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second and fourth rounds will be contested via Foursomes (or alternate shot). One teammate will tee off on the odd-numbered holes, the other on the evens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They will alternate strokes on each hole until holing out. A score in the upper 60s can be competitive if not better than field average. Serious moves are made in Four-ball, however, so the objective will be in position to defend it in the finale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shane Lowry, who won the title with Rory McIlroy in 2024, will be partnering Brooks Koepka this time around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Koepka has three appearances on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, and he logged a T9 and another three top 20s in his last five starts and the pair will be among those that the Fitzpatrick brothers need to overcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defending champions Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak will be another pair that is expected to vie for the title. Novak, especially, had been in fine form, carding an eagle and seven birdies in the third round at Harbour Town last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rookie Sudarshan Yellamaraju replaces David Ford as the new partner for Ryan Gerard. Despite the late change, the pair can still surprise in the format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aaron Rai and Sahith Theegala are also back, having made their debut with a T18 last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First timers Casey Jarvis and A.J. Ewart also pack some firepower. Jarvis is just 22 years old, but he recently went Win-Win-T2 on the DP World Tour in February and sits fourth in the Race to Dubai. Ewart, 26, is managing his first season on TOUR with moxie after medaling at PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another pair to be on the lookout is the pairing of Wyndham Clark and Taylor Moore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They have a combined four top 10s in this format, albeit not yet one together after missing the cut in their first try last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Karl Vilips and Michael Thorbjornsen are back in action after a debut duo last year finishing T4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teenage sensation Blades Brown is back in action on TOUR and will tee it up alongside fellow up-and-coming star Luke Clanton. Brown finished third at the Puerto Rico Open earlier this year and has two top-three finishes in his last three starts on the Korn Ferry Tour, including a runner-up last week in Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Newly crowned Heritage golf champion Matt Fitzpatrick will team up with brother Alex for the fourth time as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-11923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-golf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick.jpg",2279,1125,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-300x148.jpg",300,148,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-768x379.jpg",640,316,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-1024x505.jpg",640,316,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-1536x758.jpg",1536,758,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-2048x1011.jpg",2048,1011,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11925,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11923\/revisions\/11925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}