Rickie Fowler is turning the Big Three into a Big Four
It was only a year ago when we had a dream start to the PGA Tour season. Patrick Reed took down Jimmy Walker at the Plantation Course, only to see Walker bounce back the next week and dominate at the Sony Open. Jason Day, Brooks Koepka, Brandt Snedeker, Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson would win over the next eight weeks, preparing us for what would go down as one of the best seasons P.T.D. (post Tiger dominance).
And so far, 2016 is cackling at that ridiculous ’15 season, showing us early this could be an encore for the ages. Spieth started the year with one of those throwback Tiger performances in Hawaii, proving to everyone this isn’t going to be a hangover season for the top-ranked player in the world.
And over the weekend it was Rickie Fowler who won another enormous international event in impressive fashion, doing what has come to be his M.O. when near the lead late on a Sunday.
The knock on Fowler earlier in his career was the complete opposite of this, as he continued to find himself in the conversation but never the headline. His win at the 2012 Wells Fargo notwithstanding, Fowler spent most of his early 20s finishing high but without hardware, getting himself near the lead but struggling to close, something that is pretty normal for young players learning the ins and outs of the PGA Tour.
Then came the Players Championship last season and that “I have to text my best friend, my dad and my grandpa to make sure they’re watching” finish that saw Fowler triumph over one of the strongest fields in golf. His major run in 2014 was incredible -- and historic when you remember only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods had done something like that prior to Rickie -- but he still wasn’t winning. That changed at TPC Sawgrass, and it continued through the rest of ’15 and now into 2016.
With so many players going hard at Fowler on Sunday at the Abu Dhabi Championship, it was Rickie who, once again, stayed cool and collected in the moment, bouncing back from an ugly double-bogey on the par-3 seventh with an unlikely hole-out eagle on the eighth. That gave the momentum right back to the man who seems as comfortable with the lead these days as any of the three players ranked ahead of him.
Over the final 36 holes, Fowler had exactly one bad hole. Down the stretch, he did just enough to avoid clashing with a red-hot Rory McIlroy who played his last seven holes at 5-under, including an eagle on the 18th to get within one of Rickie.
Fowler never balked. He calmly chipped in for birdie on the 17th to give himself just enough of a cushion on 18, and after Thomas Pieters’ eagle putt went begging, it was Fowler’s event to win.
All the early-career thoughts about Fowler are surely out the window at this point. The turning point might have come at the 2014 PGA Championship, where he flirted with the lead all Sunday only to give it up to McIlroy at the end. From that point forward, he’s been a different guy, with his incredible finish at the Players, his birdie on the final hole at the Scottish Open to win by a shot and now the way he finished at Abu Dhabi to secure another worldwide win.
All of these victories have come at big-time events, and it’s just another example of how in today’s PGA Tour we tend overrate major wins. Is beating the field Fowler played this week as impressive as winning the British Open? Probably not, but it’s as close as it has ever been. Fowler had to sneak past the Nos. 1, 3 and 5 players in the world to claim his second career European Tour title, and it wasn’t like those three players took the week off.
Spieth, McIlroy and Henrik Stenson all finished in the top five, and all had a chance to make a run at Fowler over the course of the final round before eventually falling short.
So is Rickie worthy of a spot alongside the Big Three? Let’s take a look.
Worldwide (and counting all OWGR tournaments), since the Players Championship, here is the resume for Spieth, Day, McIlroy and Fowler:
So, yes, if you look at the results since Fowler started his run (taking into account the McIlroy injury), the resumes look very, very similar , with Spieth showing why he’s a little ahead of this group in terms of consistency.
Maybe people think a major win is necessary to get your face chiseled next to the other three, but Fowler has played himself to No. 4 in the world for a reason, and considering his age and how improved his golf game is since the start of the 2014 season, it’s probably time to start coming up with a clever “Big Four” nickname. I don’t see any of them going anywhere soon.
Shane Bacon is a regular contributor to FOXSports.com's golf coverage. Follow him on Twitter at @shanebacon.
