Matt Fitzpatrick’s life changed in the most significant and permanent of ways last month, when he and his wife Katherine welcomed their first child to the world.
The new dad was asked about his comfort level of leaving his family later this year to play in a pair of DP World Tour playoff events, the Abu Dhabi Championship and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Despite having the opportunity to defend his DP World Tour Championship title, Fitzpatrick was blunt in his response that his perspective has changed.
“As things stand right now, I would say I’m not that comfortable. No, I wouldn’t be that comfortable,” said Fitzpatrick, who is the defending DP World Tour Championship winner.
Fitzpatrick admitted that news coverage of Iran War “can be very one-sided” and difficult to discern the truth of where things stand in the conflict. Nonetheless, he was frustrated that a decision had yet to be made yet on where the playoffs would be located in 2026 — at their previously designated courses or at new venues outside of the region.
“It’s obviously frustrating that the decision hasn’t been made so you can plan what’s going on. But I understand there’s obviously a lot of moving parts to that, and it’s obviously difficult to make these decisions,” he explained. “I think if the [DP World] Tour does go, I’m sure they have had the best advice possible on what that looks like. As things stand right now, I wouldn’t necessarily be too keen on going.”
Abu Dhabi’s Yas Links has been tapped to host the the Abu Dhabi Championship from Nov. 5-8, with Jumeirah Golf Estates set to host the $10 million finale at its Earth Course from Nov. 12-15.
Fitzpatrick cited Formula 1 moving its Bahrain Grand Prix to Malaysia and calling off its Saudi Arabia Grand Prix as additional reasons for the DP World Tour to explore alternative host locations.
The Qatar Grand Prix and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix remain on F1’s calendar for late November and early December, with northern Italy rumored as the backup location for the Abu Dhabi race.
“I’ve heard [F1] might not be going there, so begs the question, why would we, I guess,” Fitzpatrick told reporters at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth on Wednesday.
He acknowledged the instability in the Middle East is tough for anyone to plan events around but did stress that a transparent dialogue about the decision-making process was lacking.
“I feel like it’s been very vague the whole time and they have not necessarily kind of had open communication,” he said. “And that’s not like having a go. I just think it is a difficult topic for them to obviously make a decision on.”
The 10-time DP World Tour winner said he’ll be in the Open de France field next week as well as the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at the start of next month.
After that, Fitzpatrick’s schedule is a bit of an known.
“Kind of depends, I don’t know when — if there’s a decision made this week, obviously have a little bit more confirmation of what I might need to decide,” he said. “Outside of that, it’s up in the air, I guess.”
