“It was at that moment that they were swept away by the current, and the friend managed to get out.”
Matt Fitzpatrick had love on his side at the 2025 Open Championship.
The 30-year-old PGA Tour player, who is currently ranked 39th in the world, according to the OWGR, made his 10th appearance at The Open (sometimes referred to as the British Open) last weekend.
His fourth-place finish was the best of his career at the event — and his wife played a major role in it.
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On July 16, one day before Fitzpatrick teed off at the major tournament, his wife, Katherine Gaal, shared a video on Instagram of her writing love notes and cute messages on his golf balls with a red sharpie.
“How many balls do you need?” Katherine Gaal asks her husband, who was in another room.
“Um, hopefully not many,” he joked in the background.
Gaal proceeds to write “MF IS CUTE” and “I LOVE YOU” on two of the balls before filling other ones in with tiny red hearts and XOs.
“I always mark my husband’s golf balls up for every tournament he plays,” Gaal says later in the video. “It’s just a special way for me to get involved.”
She went on to reveal that she usually draws hearts and stars on the golf balls.
“Sometimes if it’s a more serious tournament, I’ll do fish,” she continues — a joke that made Fitzpatrick’s father, Russell, who was sitting behind Gaal, crack up.
Despite catching some slack from her father-in-law, Gaal proceeded to give her husband a sleeve of marked golf balls.
“Anyway, I’m still gonna give you a pack of special balls, Matt. You don’t have to use them,” she said. “Packed and sealed with love.”
Fitzpatrick had his best finish yet at The Open
While it appears Fitzpatrick didn’t actually use the golf balls, per Golf.com, he did go on to finish in the top-five and even held the lead at one point in the tournament.
He finished Thursday in a tie for first place and was just one shot behind the lead after Friday, but fell to third place after the third round and finished the tournament tied for fourth place.
It’s his best finish at the tournament and it earned him a pretty $730,667 paycheck, per ESPN.
As for his wife, Fitzpatrick and Gaal, a New Jersey native, met in 2022 — just a few months after he won the first major of his career in the U.S. Open, according to Golf Monthly.
The couple went public with their relationship in January 2023, announced their engagement later that year and tied the knot in October 2024.
And yes, all of the tables at their reception were named after golf courses, per Golf Monthly.
The couple are known to travel a lot together, with Gaal posting recent photos of them at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships, the 2025 British Grand Prix and the 2025 Scottish Open on Instagram.
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Fitzpatrick finished in fourth place at the Scottish Open and has now finished in the top-10 in three straight tournaments thanks to his play at The Open, per ESPN.
