Rickie Fowler wins The Players Championship: American silences clinically insecure rivals after 'overrated' jibe to clinch victory
A day after being named the joint-most overrated player by his professional rivals, Fowler comes good on his potential to win at TPC Sawgrass
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Your support makes all the difference.What better way to stuff the bitter claims of envious golfers up the waste pipes of their sunless zones than with victory to win the biggest prize in golf? "If there was any question," said Fowler, stroking the crystal trophy that came with winning the Players Championship on Sunday, "I think this right here answers anything you need to know."
Hear, hear. Fowler was referring to a Sports Illustrated poll of fellow professionals that tethered him and Ian Poulter to the unflattering title of ‘Most over-rated player on the PGA Tour’. What kind of mean spirited lizard dreams up this stuff? The anonymity guaranteed in this sort of miserable parlour game does not evince the truth but rather the neuroses of the clinically insecure.
Fowler’s poster boy looks and popularity with sponsors were clearly too much for 24 per cent of his peers, exasperated that a player with only one PGA Tour victory to his name, claimed three years ago at this week’s Wells Fargo Championship, should generate such fanfare among the galleries, television studios and commercial investors.
Hype over substance was the thrust of it. And then he goes and posts four birdies and an eagle in his closing six holes to bag the lead and invite those coming up behind to match him. Sergio Garcia, who led Fowler by five shots with eight to play, responded along with Kevin Kisner to take the tournament to a play-off. Having birdied the signature par-3 17th four times already during the tournament and twice that day, it was fitting that a fifth strike against par on the island green should deliver Fowler’s third professional win.
It was a pure demonstration of a golfer under pressure delivering on the highest stage when the demand was at its height. Fowler’s handsome exterior and easy demeanour belie a steely core. How do these nincompoops imagine Fowler might compile the lowest average finish at the majors last year without that? Fifth at the Masters was as poor as it got in a year when he was also runner-up at the US Open and Open Championship and third at a PGA Championship he really should have won.
The point is he was good enough to contend. Had the bounce of the ball gone his way when he pushed his 5-iron to the right at the par-3 14th while leading on the final day at Valhalla last August he might have been a major champion at 25. Fate was kind to him when he needed a break at Sawgrass and he is the Players Champion as a result. Success is measured in fractions at this level, but that does not suit golf’s green-eyed tendency who see things only in black and white.
Speaking of that PGA Championship miss Fowler’s caddie Joe Skovron said: “It beat us up. We thought we were going to win that tournament. I wholeheartedly believed it, he wholeheartedly believed it. We didn’t win it. But that’s what golf is. That’s what makes this so much more special. To do it (like this), it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Fowler was self-evidently pleased with his work. “I was always looked at as only having one win on Tour. I always felt that I needed to put myself in position to win more often, and I did that last year (but) I wasn’t able to end up as the last guy standing. It feels good to be in that position.”
As the voice of reason on tour, Fowler’s 2007 Walker Cup team-mate Billy Horschel, said: “I don’t know what people were thinking about when they thought he was overrated. He’s such a humble guy and such a good guy. He doesn’t brag about anything he does.”
Not even winning the Players. “We obviously look at this tournament as one of the biggest that we play up against the majors. This is a special week. Everyone looks forward to it. Just happy that I had a chance to get in the play-off and to be here on 17 and get it done.”
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