Fitzpatrick was cruising along when his tee shot on the par-3 14th turned hard to the left, headed for sand and trees when it caught what appeared to be the edge of a cart path that sent the ball back down a slope onto the green and headed for the water.
It was slowed just enough by a sprinkler to stay dry, and he holed a 30-footer for a most unlikely birdie. Fitzpatrick birdied two of the next three and completed a bogey-free round.
"Yeah, it was lucky, there's no two ways about it," Fitzpatrick said. "Sometimes you need that in a week, so it's nice to get, and then even nicer to take advantage of it."
Viktor Hovland had it far tougher in the afternoon when the wind got stronger, and it doesn't take much around tree-lined Harbour Town for players to get indecisive or catch the wrong gust.
Hovland got the right club on the exposed par-3 17th to 12 feet for his eighth birdie of the day and a hard-earned 65. That included a birdie on the par-5 fifth when he was still 205 yards out for his third shot and wound up holing a 30-footer.
"I wouldn't say I striped it today, but at least I kind of kept the ball in front of me, and that's what you're trying to do on this golf course," Hovland said.
Fitzpatrick, who won the RBC Heritage in a playoff over Jordan Spieth in 2023, was at 14-under 128.
Karl Vilips is the best-placed Australian and shares 28th at five-under-par.
Min Woo Lee is three shots further back, and Jason Day is at even par for the tournament after a second-round 72.
Harris English got the wrong gust on the 11th hole and went from scrambling for par to figuring out how to escape with double bogey from a plugged lie in the sand. He overcame that, had a 68 and was three shots behind.
Scottie Scheffler, who played alongside Fitzpatrick, hit all 14 fairways for only the fourth time in his career — two of those were on the runway-wide fairways of Kapalua — and had a steady diet of birdie chances in the 18-foot range. He managed a bogey-free 67 and was seven behind.
Fitzpatrick and Scheffler both hit the ball so well it looked they were playing a Tuesday money game, with birdie chances on every hole and exchanging birdies early on before the wind acted up.
Patrick Cantlay, who took a big step last week with consecutive bogey-free rounds at the Masters after opening with a 77, shot 64 and was four shots behind along with Sepp Straka (67) and Ludvig Aberg, who was closing in on Fitzpatrick until three bogeys on the back nine led to a 71.
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