Resurgent Matt Fiztpatrick soared to the top of The Open just three months after the lowest point of his career. The English star charged to the day-one summit with a blistering 67 at Royal Portrush. Fitzpatrick is fighting back to form and aiming to emerge from his darkest spell which brought back-to-back missed cuts prior to the Masters in April. The 30-year-old has been showing signs of life in recent weeks with Top 10s at both The Rocket Classic and Genesis Scottish Open. Fitzpatrick then shone in round one of the biggest event of the lot with the encouraging signs blooming in Northern Ireland. It was a positive step from troubled times with a brilliant chip-in at the 16th a highlight and he said: “THE PLAYERS this year, it was really bad, and even Valero [Texas Open] a couple weeks later, I couldn’t find the face with the ball. It was just not good. “That’s the lowest I’ve been, I felt, in my career. Statistically it could be the worst run that I’ve played as well. “I just didn’t feel good or know where it was going. Obviously I felt like it was a pretty low point. “For me, it’s kind of like just change my technique with my irons. I got to understand my tendencies a lot better to understand what I need to do to fix that. “Started working with Mark Blackburn and he’s given me a lot of time. I feel like just a bit of change of information has made me understand myself a little bit better. “From there, I feel like I’ve just had more consistency, and from there, you can build confidence and keep calm. “When I saw Mark for the first time, and kind of with advice from my trainers Andrew and Luke, it was on how like my body is. I have really long arms, so that’s got to be factored in in what we’re working on. At that point, kind of everything changed, with my approach play anyway. “My team has changed a lot since 2022. There’s obviously varying reasons for that. I have obviously done that because I believe it’s in the best interest of myself to get better. I feel like that’s the direction I needed to go. “It’s easy to say a few good rounds and that’s why, but there’s always more to it than that. It’s a combination of everything and it’s also a team effort as well.” Fitzpatrick’s best previous Open finish in a tied-20th at Portrush in 2019 and he said: “I think this place is fantastic. “The Open venues haven’t necessarily been great to me. I’ve not necessarily been playing great when I’ve come here either. “I wouldn’t say I particularly enjoy playing links golf. It’s just a grind all the time, isn’t it? I like a grind, but sometimes it’s a grind with low scoring and that’s what I find difficult. “I like hitting it to 30 feet and making a par and it’s a great par, you know what I mean? I was looking winning score here, Shane [Lowry] was obviously six ahead, but 12-under would have gotten you top five, maybe. “I don’t know if it’s just the way I see the game might be differently, but I feel like I’ve got the shots to play well. I hit it as low as anyone out here, so it should stay out of the wind. But I just don’t think it’s necessarily as easy as some of these guys make it look.”