CONTENTS

ScottishOpen
ScottishOpen
Fowler

Back where he belongs

With his customary tradition of wearing orange on Sundays, the colours of Oklahoma State University where he went to college, Rickie Fowler has become one of the most popular, recognizable and approachable figures in the game.

 

But that orange wasn’t seen as much as fans would have hoped during a bleak 2022 for the American, who missed nine of 22 cuts last season and only qualified for one Major Championship, the PGA Championship.

 

In a bid to turn things around, Fowler split with his swing coach and ditched caddy Joe Skovron before returning to the tutelage of Butch Harmon, who had overseen six of Fowler’s worldwide wins.

 

Since then, the 2015 Players Championship winner has enjoyed quite a turnaround with five top tens in last 14 starts to help him surge back up into the top 35 of the Official World Golf Ranking, having been as low as 185th last year.

 

Fowler’s return to the upper echelons of the game was most apparent just last month, when he led the first three rounds of the U.S. Open Championship before settling for a share of fifth at LA Country Club.

 

Despite not sealing a first win since the 2019 Waste Management Phoenix Open, Fowler proved he was back to his best by shooting the first 62 in the tournament’s history, which included ten birdies – the most in a round in U.S. Open history.

“It’s definitely been long and tough,” said Fowler. “A lot longer being in that situation than you’d ever want to. But it makes it so worth it having gone through that and being back where we are now. “I would say we’re starting to get maybe as close as we’ve ever been to where I was through kind of that 14, 15 area. I’ve been playing fairly consistently but a lot of it for me is what I’ve been able to get out of off-weeks where I’m not playing very well and still able to make the cut and kind of turn those into at least top-20s or top-10s and the last few years those were missed cuts and going home.

 

 

The fan favourite will be hoping to continue that upward trajectory this week as he looks to secure a second title in the third Rolex Series event of the season after producing birdies on three of the last four holes to seal a one-stroke win over fellow countryman Matt Kuchar and France’s Raphael Jacquelin in 2015.

 

“I love links golf – the golf course can play so differently each day and it’s always such an interesting challenge,” said Fowler, who has a record of three top tens in “It’s also good preparation for The Open. You often see guys who have played in the Scottish Open doing well the following week, so I’m looking forward to two good weeks on the links.”

While a perfect finish at one of the game’s Majors is still missing from Fowler’s CV, he has been knocking on the door on many occasions, with nine top five finishes across the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open Championship.

 

One of those just so happened to come at Royal Liverpool in 2014 when he finished runner-up behind Rory McIlory. With the Claret Jug up for grabs at the same course next week, another solid outing at the Genesis Scottish Open could pave the way for a run at becoming Champion Golf of the Year for the first time. If he were to, you’d be hard to find a player or a fan who didn’t think he’d earned it.

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