‘Got dragged into that one’: The selfish reason Alex Fitzpatrick caddied for brother at U.S. Amateur

Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick’s emotional victory at last week’s Zurich Classic was not the first time the brothers teamed up for a big win. Back in 2013, a 13-year-old Alex caddied for Matt during his U.S. Amateur victory at the Country Club.

If you thought that would be a dream-come-true for the pre-High School Alex, you thought wrong.

It turns out that the Fitzpatrick parents had to bribe their young son with a shiny new device to convince him to carry Matt’s bag that week, as Alex explained on Tuesday at the 2026 Cadillac Championship.

Alex Fitzpatrick ready to break out of Matt’s shadow after PGA Tour promotion

For most of their lives, Alex Fitzpatrick had to live in the shadow of his big brother. Matt Fitzpatrick showed signs of greatness early on.

He backed them up with a career-changing victory at the 2022 U.S. Open, at the exact same course, the Country Club in Brookline, where he won the U.S. Amateur with Alex on the bag nine years before.

Matt is currently on the hottest streak of his career, having won three PGA Tour events since late March to rise to World No. 3. But Alex is on a tear of his own.

After capturing his first DP World Tour win in March, he teed it up with Matt at the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans last week, for what he was expecting to simply be a good opportunity for “spending time with my brother.”

Alex got the family time he was looking for, but he also walked away with a victory, giving him a PGA Tour card for two years, over $1 million in prize money and spots in the remaining Signature Events.

So while Matt is taking it easy this week following his third win of the year, Alex is in Florida to play the Cadillac Championship.

Alex Fitzpatrick reveals parents’ bribery scheme to get him to caddie for Matt

During his pre-tournament press conference, Fitzpatrick was asked about his original partnership with his brother Matt at the 2013 U.S. Amateur.

For outsiders, it was a fairytale week that harkened back to Francis Ouimet’s U.S. Open win at Brookline one hundred years before, when 10-year-old Eddie Lowery famously carried his bag.

For Alex, the vibe was very different. In fact, he didn’t want to caddie for Matt that week at all. Their dad, Russell Fitzpatrick, was then forced to take an extreme measure to make it happen: bribery. He promised to buy Alex a new phone if he caddied for Matt in the tournament.

“I only caddied for [Matt] at the U.S. Amateur because my dad promised me a new phone,” Alex revealed in his Tuesday press conference at Trump Doral. “That was only reason why I caddied for him, because it was too expensive to buy a caddie for the week, so I got dragged into that one.”

Alex added that he did indeed get his new phone after Matt won, calling it a “win-win.”

“And then he won and then I got a new phone, so it was a win-win all around,” he joked.

It’s been a whirlwind few days since the Zurich triumph, but now Alex is set to chart his own PGA Tour career without his brother by his side beginning at the Cadillac Championship.

While Matt won’t be there in person, he did send Alex a touching note of encouragement for the Cadillac the morning after their Zurich victory.

“He just said, you know, he said enjoy it. He sent me a really nice text the morning afterwards that was like, you know, as much as this win is both of us, you deserve to be here, you’re playing some great golf, go out there and show them what you have and just try and enjoy it as much as you can really, that was the biggest message from him,” Alex said on Tuesday.

Fitzpatrick tees off for the first round of his new PGA Tour career on Thursday at 1:20 p.m. ET.