DETROIT – Rickie Fowler has his swagger back.
It’s been building since the start of the season when he opened with a T-6 in the season kickoff in Napa in September, played in the final group at the Zozo Championship in October, shot the first 62 in U.S. Open history earlier this month and shot 60 last Saturday at the Travelers Championship.
On Thursday, he made eight birdies and carded 5-under 67 at Detroit Golf Club, three strokes off the early lead set by Monday qualifier Peter Kuest at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
On a warm, hazy day, the pros picked apart the softened Donald Ross layout. Fowler’s round could’ve been even lower had he not finished with a pair of bogeys at Nos. 8 and 9.
“To be perfectly honest, I had to go to the bathroom pretty badly, so luckily I just got drug tested so I went straight in,” he said. “There weren’t many bathrooms the last five holes so I was a little shaky coming in, and not to necessarily blame the finish on that, but it didn’t help.”
Rickie rolling it in
@RickieFowler joins the leaders at 6-under. pic.twitter.com/WTk8jrKh19
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 29, 2023
For the past few years, Fowler’s game has been shaky for other reasons.
He hasn’t won since the 2019 WM Phoenix Open, didn’t qualify for the Masters for the second straight year and his world ranking plummeted to No. 103 at the start of the year.
“Rickie never had scar tissue,” said Cobra equipment rep Ben Schomin. “He never struggled at any stage in his career. Never had been in a slump. He’s back and I think he’ll play better than he’s ever played. A lot of that will be because of what he’s learned going through this.”
Fowler worked tirelessly to regain his form. For a while, many of those hours proved to be fruitless but he says he’s a better player for them. Perhaps the best lesson he learned as he worked through his slump was this: “I appreciate the good times because I know they’re not going to last forever,” he said.
A year ago, Fowler missed the cut in the Motor City and his game was adrift. Asked to describe the difference between his game now and a year ago, he said, “It’s quite a bit different, just the confidence and self-belief and knowing what I’m capable of and what I’ve been doing and the consistency and kind of being able to build momentum,” he said. “That was something that I definitely didn’t have the last few years. Yeah, in a lot better spot.”
Fowler has improved to No. 35 in the Official World Golf Ranking and No. 9 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings, which better reflects a player’s recent performance. He’s finished in the top 20 in 12 of his 15 starts this year. Next up is returning to the winner’s circle, but Fowler just wants to be in striking distance heading into the weekend.
“That’s really all you hope for on a Thursday to get a tournament going is get out moving in the right direction,” he said.
Good starts have been eluding two-time major winner Collin Morikawa of late. Last week, in Hartford, Connecticut, he opened with 74 and missed the cut at the Travelers. He was quite pleased to shoot a bogey-free 66 on Thursday.
“It was an easy 6 under, it could have been a lot lower, but that’s kind of what I want, how my game should be really,” said Morikawa, who is seeking his first PGA Tour win since the 2021 British Open.
He credited a minor swing change that he made during a practice session after his Wednesday nine-hole pro-am round for his improved play, noting it is “still a work in progress.”
Collin Morikawa tees off on the 15th hole during the first round of the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club. (Photo: Junfu Han/Detroit Free Press)
Two recent college stars who are benefiting from PGA Tour U – 2023 Haskins Award winner Ludvig Aberg out of Texas Tech and 2022 U.S. Amateur champ Sam Bennett out of Texas A&M – were among a group of four players to shoot 65. Aberg hit all 14 fairways and held the lead at 9 under until he made bogeys at his last two holes.
Kuest, a 25-year-old BYU grad, has limited status on the Korn Ferry Tour and hasn’t gotten into an event yet this season based on his Q-school finish, so he decided to chase getting into tournaments on the big tour. He made four birdies in a five-hole stretch on his front nine en route to shooting 64. Asked what he would’ve been doing had he not earned one of four spots into the Rocket Mortgage Classic field Monday, he said, “Probably fishing back in Utah.”