Fifty years ago at the 1973 U.S. Open, Johnny Miller famously shot a Sunday 63 to win at Oakmont and set the record for the lowest round ever in a major championship. On Thursday, Rickie Fowler made history at Los Angeles Country Club by becoming the first golfer to card a 62 at a U.S. Open and tied Brendan Grace’s 62 in the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. Shortly after Fowler signed his card, Xander Schuaffele finished his first round at the 2023 U.S. Open with a 62 to share the early lead.
Watching Fowler today, it would be easy to forget that he hasn’t qualified for the last two U.S. Opens, but this has been a comeback season for the 34-year-old Californian thanks to a remarkable return to form on the greens.
Historically, Fowler had been an excellent putter, and he even led the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting in 2017 with an average of 0.852, but by 2021 he had slipped to 126th in that category and was worse on the greens than the average player on Tour at -.091. The following season, it was even worse at -0.253 (161st).
That’s when karma, a new putter and a new grip came to Fowler’s rescue.
Rickie Fowler’s Odyssey Versa Jailbird (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
A few days before the start of the American Express in La Quinta, California, Fowler’s first event of 2023, he hit a few putts with a putter owned by his caddie, Ricky Romano. The putter was a 2016 Odyssey Versa Jailbird, a black and white mallet fitted with a 17-inch SuperStroke Zenergy 3.0 grip. Fowler loved it, even though it was opposite from the blade-style putters he’d had success with in the past.
Fowler contacted Joe Toulon, a PGA Tour rep for Odyssey and requested a putter that was precisely like Romano’s Jailbird. Coincidentally, Toulon had cleaned out Callaway’s truck the week before the American Express and removed several old Odyssey putter heads, but had he found a Versa Jailbird the day and decided to keep it on board because Odyssey re-released the black-and-white striped putters this season. That head, which almost got thrown away, is now Fowler’s putter.
The club is 38 5/8″ long and has two degrees of loft. Fowler had the putter shortened by 1/8″ on Monday. He didn’t want that change made for a performance reason.
Instead, Fowler, who holds the extended-length putter normally with a few inches of the grip above his hands, wanted the putter shortened so the butt end would not brush against his pullovers, jackets or sweaters!
Rickie Fowler’s 17-inch SuperStroke grip weighs 93 grams. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
The Versa Jailbird Toulon had weighed 350 grams, but Fowler’s caddie’s putter was heavier, so to match the weight, three layers of lead tape were added to the sole. The added weight was also necessary because the 17-inch SuperStroke grip, which is 3 inches longer than standard, weighs 93 grams, which is 30-35 grams more than a typical putter grip. The combination of the heavier head and heavier grip creates a counterbalancing effect, which Toulon suspects combines with the Versa alignment lines to help Fowler swing more freely and make more short and mid-range putts.
The stats bear that out. On Thursday at LACC, Fowler’s Strokes Gained: Putting average was an eye-catching 4.52 and coming into this week’s U.S. Open, he ranks 50th on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting at +0.281.
The combination of a new alignment system, a forgiving mallet design and a counterbalancing grip could be precisely what Rickie Fowler needs to win his first major championship. And he’s got his caddie to thank for it.