BIRMINGHAM, ALA – English teen Matthew Fitzpatrick has been named the Southern Golf Association’s National Amateur of the Month for July. Fitzpatrick, 18, won on the strength of his victory in the USGA Amateur Championship, the world’s top- rated amateur tournament.

Fitzpatrick defeated Aussie Oliver Gross, 4 and 3, in the 36-hole final match at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. The winner headed up a group of foreign-born competitors in an event that was without an American among the four semifinalists.

Recent SGA Ams of the Month Winners September: Nathan Smith, U.S. Mid-Am | More October: Meghan Stasi, U.S. Women's Mid-Am | More March: Patrick Rodgers, Stanford | More April: Tianlang Guan, Masters | More May: Max Homa, Cal | More June: Cory Whitsett, Alabama | More July: Zachary Olsen, Okla. State | More

In selection panel voting, Fitzpatrick, who is headed to Northwestern University for his freshman year, narrowly defeated Oklahoma State soph Jordan Niebrugge, who was accorded honorable mention after stringing together victories three straight weeks. However, only his hat trick-clinching triumph in the prestigious Western Amateur was contested in August.

The Am of the Month award is selected by a national, blue-ribbon panel of golf officials, coaches and journalists. This year’s previous winners of the March-thru- October award were Stanford’s Patrick Rodgers, Chinese teen Masters sensation Guan Tianlang, Cal’s Max Homa, Alabama’s Cory Whitsett and Southern Am champ Zachary Olsen.

The coveted award is one of the ways the SGA promotes and advances amateur golf, including its storied Southern Amateur, the 108th playing scheduled next July at the exclusive Honors Course near Chattanooga.

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