By Kent Gray
Matthew Fitzpatrick joked about tucking his putter under the covers with him overnight to ensure the magical blade remains hot after he kept the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on 59 watch for much of a memorable moving day.

But it’s what the 23-year-old Englishman planned to do after his eventual best-of-the-week 63 and before bedtime on Saturday that could be the key to his tilt at the $3 million Desert Swing title.

While Fitzpatrick’s putter was impossibly hot in the third round, his driver was not and he figured on ironing that out on the range.

“You know, it’s a real funny one for me today because I don’t feel like tee-to-green I played that well,” Fitzpatrick said after soaring 17 places up the leaderboard into a share of fourth,  two shots shy of overnight co-leaders Thomas Pieters and Ross Fisher.

“I’m sure people will be sat at home thinking, he must have played well. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of good approaches, but just struggled a little bit off the tee. Around here it’s really important to get yourself in play off the tee. If you can hit 14 fairways, there’s always a score out there, basically.

“So play a better long game than today, really [that’s the plan for Sunday]. If I go out and shoot the same score, I’ll be a happy man. I think it will be tough to beat. “

Fitzpatrick started Saturday in the eighth to last threesome, six shots adrift of the -12 marker set by 36-hole leader Pieters. But a birdie-birdie start, a gaggle of three more in succession from the fourth and further gains at the 8th and 9th and Fitzpatrick had  gone out in 29 strokes (his best nine was a 28 at the KLM Open two years ago] and hauled himself right back into contention.

When he birdied the par 5 10th and par 4 12th, bookending a magnificent par save after short-siding himself in the hay to the right of the 11th green, the 2016 DP World Tour Champion was a stunning nine under through 12 holes. The 59 watch was on as not even Fitzpatrick could ignore it.

“You know, you’re always thinking, 59, you really are,” he said when asked what he was thinking as he wandered from the 12th green.

“It’s difficult not to. Even though I wasn’t playing great, I knew how well I was putting and I felt if I could just give myself those chances on the greens, I could make the putts, basically.

“So I didn’t feel it would take much to just pick up a few more birdies. I only needed four. I knew 18 was obviously reachable and then a couple of those [last holes], you just get it nearby the hole and you sort of try and take your chance. But you know, it’s so difficult.”

Historically so. There have been two 59s on the Challenge Tour but the lowest score on the European Tour remains 61, a record five players, including Ross Fisher and Paul Dunne (the Irishman shot a 65 in the same group as Fitzpatrick and starts Sunday four back) who are contending here, jointly hold.

A bogey on the 16th, when Fitzpatrick again short-sided himself firing at a pin tucked tight left on the par 4, scuppered the 59 and ultimately cost the Ryder Cupper a share of the Abu Dhabi course record set by Henrik Stenson in the inaugural championship in 2006.

Not that Fitzpatrick was grizzling afterwards.

“At the end of the day, the game is all about scoring, and obviously I’ve scored ridiculously well today. That’s what’s nice. I’m back in the tournament and it’s something at the start of the year that I wanted to do is contend more. “

If Fitzpatrick and his putter slept well overnight, don’t discount the world No.30 turning a good start to 2018 into a great one with his fifth European Tour title.