Matthew Fitzpatrick comes to blows with Shane Lowry's complaints about Open

Despite his Ryder Cup mates Shane Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton kicking up a stink about the Open Championship's tough course set-up, Matthew Fitzpatrick reckons it was 'fair'. Lowry clearly disagrees ...

The Royal Troon in Scotland has been battered by fierce winds and lashings of rain this week, making for a brutal test of golf.

The conditions hit peak ferocity on Saturday afternoon, giving the leaders a proper workout in their third round, with Lowry in particular losing his temper at times .

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Lowry, who had been leading by two shots at the start of the weekend, took a tumble down the leaderboard after carding a six-over-par 77 on moving day, leaving him one-under and out of contention.

Afterwards, Lowry blasted the tee box placements on the back nine, especially with the punishing headwinds players faced towards the end of their rounds. The Irish golfer felt the pinch particularly at the 17th hole, where he was forced to pull out the driver just to reach the par-three green.

In a chat on Saturday evening, Lowry shared his ordeal: "Look, I don't really know what to say. It was a grind. It wasn't much fun," and went on to detail some daunting shots, "Driver, driver into 15. 16 playing ridiculously long. Driver into 17. Then you're standing on the 18th tee wondering if you can actually hit the fairway, if you can reach the fairway, and it's 230 yards to the fairway."

"Bear in mind my driver pitched about 220 yards on the 17th hole. So, yeah, it's not much fun out there. It's obviously very difficult. But you'd have to question why there wasn't a couple of tees put forward today, to be honest. I think 15 and 17 - like 15 is 500 yards playing into that wind."

His Ryder Cup teammate Hatton echoed his sentiments earlier in the week, after missing the cut following a disappointing second round.

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Despite this, Fitzpatrick had a positive outlook and even expressed sympathy for the RandA as he concluded his week on Sunday.

"I think this has been a fantastically fair test this week," he suggested. "I don't know whether to feel sorry for the RandA about yesterday afternoon or whether they did get it wrong, I genuinely don't know. I think I was sat in my chair in my living room in the warmth thinking I hit eight-iron on 13 and these boys are hitting three-wood. So it was quite a difference. Aside from that, I think it's been a really good test."

Fitzpatrick's showing in Scotland was not his best this week, ending up nine-over-par after completing an over-par 72 in the final round. He now sets his sights towards the Olympic Games in Paris, where he will represent Great Britain alongside Tommy Fleetwood at Le Golf National in August.

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