Rising star Fowler breaking par, hearts in first Tour season
Goals change. Things happen. Great things. Life-changing things. Rickie Fowler is proof that while you might pick up a pencil and paper and scribble down those lofty ambitions you intend on chasing over the next year, there’s always a chance an eraser will be needed and the journey altered.
“It has been an awesome year,” he said. “The only thing better would be to win.”
Memo to local mothers of junior high and high school daughters: If you hear moans and groans about sudden headaches the next few days, it’s probably just their way of asking to skip school and watch golf.
Specifically, follow around and snap pictures of a
21-year old with a flair for colorful outfits and a game most think could one day be the world’s best.
Fowler made his debut as a PGA professional last year at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, an event he is the betting favorite to win this week when play begins Thursday at TPC Summerlin.
He is the kind of golfer who could perhaps draw bodies to a tournament that annually lacks star power — a young, talented, social media conscious athlete who constantly tweets his thoughts and might hold his iPhone more than he does a driver.
“Rickie Fowler is like — I don’t know,” Timberlake said. “I think he’s cooler than Justin Bieber.
“Did I just throw the gauntlet down? I’m taking Rickie Fowler.”
Fowler will play in today’s Pro-Am but not with Timberlake, meaning the kid who became the first rookie ever to make a Ryder Cup team this year has an excellent chance of going off on time at 11:50 a.m. For the record and because it’s important we keep such facts updated for our own personal amusement, Timberlake was late for his annual press conference here a third straight year.
The kid is batting 1.000, his enablers and bodyguards are still keeping horrible time and yet things appear hunky-dory for the guy everyone around here calls J.T.
Things also couldn’t be better for Fowler.
It has been a swift rise, from the nation’s top collegiate player at Oklahoma State to finishing tied for seventh here last year to earning his tour card at Q-School to a first full PGA season that includes six Top 10 finishes.
He was second at the Phoenix Open in February and at The Memorial in June. He was a captain’s pick on the Ryder Cup team and played four of the most memorable holes of the event the U.S. team lost to Europe by a half-point.
He sits 24th on the money list, meaning another good showing here would all but clinch a Top 30 finish and entrance into the Masters and U.S. Open in 2011.
Crazy. He just wanted to do well enough here last year to earn his card. Goals change. Things happen.
“I definitely want to be the best player in the world — that’s what I’m shooting for,” Fowler said. “Obviously, being well known would come with that. For what I want to do in the game and for the game, being in a position to where I am known comes with all of that.
“The game feels good right now. It’s good to come to a place I’m familiar with and be able to sleep in my own bed.”
He is a California native who leases a condo in Las Vegas and is now also living in Florida, obviously well informed on a golfer’s life of tax advantages and where the weather best fits one’s sporting livelihood.
He plays fast and takes risks, traits born from a childhood of racing off-road vehicles with his father, who for years drove competitively. But when the times comes for calmness, for nerves of a surgeon about to make the initial incision, Fowler has at such a young age also shown he can adapt on the game’s grandest stage.
He birdied those final four holes in his Ryder Cup match against Edoardo Molinari in Wales earlier this month, holing a 15-foot putt to come all the way back from 4-down to earn the Amercians a halve and keep their hopes of defending the Cup alive until they would lose it soon after.
“At the time, I was so focused on what I had to do, I didn’t have time to be nervous,” Fowler said. “I never think about failing.”
He is favored to earn his first PGA victory this week and if so, will be presented the winner’s trophy by Timberlake.
Who, according to our highly unofficial punctuality stats, has never been late for the Sunday ceremony. J.T. is all over that.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can also be heard from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday and 2 to 3 p.m. Thursday on “Monsters of the Midday,” FOX Sports Radio 920 AM.
