Matt Fitzpatrick believes his ball was stolen during a weather-affected first round at the BMW PGA Championship – but said “it was a good result” that may have helped him to a six-under-par 66.
The Englishman said the incident occurred after he went right off the tee on the 18th hole at Wentworth just as play was suspended for more than 90 minutes because of thunder and lightning.
When play resumed, he was able take a penalty drop rather than playing his provisional ball – which he believed saved him at least a shot.
Fitzpatrick is two strokes behind his playing partner Ludvig Aberg, who is tied for the lead with France’s Tom Vaillant.
“Someone from the public saw two lads running into the bushes, running out with a golf ball and so they can only think it was my ball,” Fitzpatrick said.
“I made a bogey six, but if we’d had to find it, we probably wouldn’t have.
“I’d then have had to play my provisional ball and it would likely have been worse. So, all in all, it was a good result. I’d have preferred rather than steal it, they’d chucked it back out on to the fairway.”
The weather delay on a rain-soaked afternoon left 30 players, including Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald, to complete their opening rounds on Friday morning.
With Sepp Straka the only absentee at Wentworth from Donald’s 12-man team for the biennial contest against the United States later this month, Aberg was the pick of his players.
The Swede, playing with Fitzpatrick in a nod towards potential pairings at Bethpage Black in New York, made three consecutive birdies to finish, with the highlight being a 50-foot putt on the 17th, as he drew alongside early starter Vaillant at the top of the leaderboard.
“I felt like once I got on the greens, I was rolling the putter really nice and tried to be aggressive with the speed. I managed to make a lot of putts, which is nice,” Aberg said.
“Any time you shoot that kind of score, I think you need to be good on the greens, and that was what it was today.
“It’s very easy to be around him [Matt] and we can chat about all sorts of things that are not even golf related. Today was one of them days where we both played pretty well. Hopefully we can do that in New York in a couple weeks’ time, too.”
