Alex Fitzpatrick stressed he is only focusing on one shot at a time as he became Matt Wallace's closest rival at the halfway stage of the Omega European Masters.
Alex is the younger brother of former U.S. Open Champion Matt Fitzpatrick, who has also won on two occasions at Crans-sur-Sierre in 2017 and 2018.
But it is Alex who has been excelling in the Swiss Alps, taking advantage of the favourable conditions on Thursday afternoon to sit alongside Spain's Alfredo Garcia-Heredia at the top of the first round leaderboard at seven under.
Friday's second round proved to be a grind as he mixed two birdies and his only dropped shot of the tournament through 16 holes before a birdie-birdie finish saw him climb up to ten under, which was the leading mark until Wallace surged to the summit by moving four shots clear.
Fitzpatrick is still awaiting his maiden DP World Tour title on his 43rd start, but he insists he is not thinking about collecting a red jacket like his elder sibling just yet.
"It wasn’t as good as yesterday. There was a lot of grinding throughout the round, I sort of didn’t really give myself any chances literally until the last two holes and it was a bit of a struggle," he said.
"But hopefully these are the days you manage to grind out a score and move up the leaderboard. Happy to finish where I did and hopefully same the next couple of days.
"It is a tricky course, the wind switches a lot, obviously you have all the altitude to deal with and the rough isn't necessarily easy to get out of, but yeah, I had a lot of kind of, five or six footers that I holed at good moments and that sort of kept me in it.
"I think it’s pretty easy to miss one of those and lose a bit of momentum, and kind of get down on yourself but happy with the way I finished.
"If I can get a red jacket it would be great but I’m just trying to focus on each shot at a time and trying to play well this weekend, and see where that leaves me. If it is up the leaderboard great, if not, there are worse things in life."
