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Rickie Fowler flashes brilliance, inconsistency at Quicken Loans National

By Randy Holt

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Heading into the final round of the Quicken Loans National, Rickie Fowler found himself in prime position to capture his third win of the season. Two shots back after some outstanding play going into Sunday’s final round, Fowler shot a final round 69 that came up short against eventual winner Troy Merritt. However, while some inconsistencies held him back, Fowler’s performance in Gainesville, VA should bode well for the impending PGA Championship, set to take place in two weeks at Whistling Straits.

This type of performance isn’t uncommon for Fowler, who has shaken off the overrated label that was handed to him by his peers earlier this year. Heading into the season’s last major, the Open Championship at St. Andrews, Fowler was coming off the win at the Scottish Open. While he didn’t spin that victory into a followup win at St. Andrews, he did make some noise and finished tied for 30th at six-under for the weekend.

With a similar situation, though a weekend in between, in which Fowler is coming off of a strong performance in the weekend before a major, what should we expect from him at Whistling Straits? If it’s anything like what he put together at Robert Trent Jones golf course, the answer could be big things.

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Fowler’s first two rounds featured a -10 performance, going four-under on Thursday and following it up with a six-under Friday that had him a single stroke back heading into the weekend. It was an opening pair of rounds that was headlined by an ace on his final hole of the day on Thursday, catapulting him into that Friday performance, which was his best round of the weekend.

Saturday featured another one of the weekend’s major highlights, as he drained a 70-foot putt during a three-under round. He went five-under combined for the weekend, including a -2 round on Sunday, but it ended up coming just short of the winner, Merritt, as Fowler finished the weekend three strokes back. Should we consider it a success for Fowler, who demonstrated another strong performance when examined as a collective? Or should we focus more on what could have been in Gainesville? Probably the former.

Fowler’s putting was perhaps as on point as it has been all year, and that’s primarily what allowed him to be so effective. He gained 1.33 strokes, which is well above his season average of 0.93. His Friday featured birdie putts of 38 and 27 feet, while he closed the weekend out with a 23-footer to finish at 15-under for the weekend.

It’s clear that his confidence was sky high on the greens, but he succeeded in other areas, as well. His average driving distance was at 303 yards and change, quite a bit higher than his average of 295, and he hit 76.39% of greens in regulation, which is actually about 10 percent higher than his normal rate. Of course, while we point out the brilliance from Fowler that he demonstrated over the weekend, it’s also important to look at some of the inconsistencies that he flashed as well.

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    • Fowler was unable to capture the win with a couple of up-and-down performances throughout the weekend, particularly on Sunday. While he managed seven birdies on the day for the final round of the tournament, he also recorded five bogies on Sunday that restricted him from perhaps capturing the win. He had some bogie issues in the previous day as well, recording three after registering just a trio of combined bogies on Thursday and Friday. It’s those inconsistencies he’ll obviously have to shake off heading into the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational next week and, ultimately, the PGA Championship in two weeks.

    But if we look at the weekend as a collective, it should really bode well for Rickie Fowler heading into these next couple of weeks. His putting was off-the-charts hot throughout the weekend, and he drove the ball quite a bit better than his average. He’ll have an opportunity to build on a quality performance from 2014 at Firestone Country Club next weekend, at the WGC-Bridgestone, where he finished tied for eighth with a seven-under performance. With that tournament sandwiched in between Quicken Loans and the PGA Championship, we could be set to learn a lot about Rickie Fowler.

    He’s already blown us away with a career year in which he recorded a pair of big wins, and nearly captured another this past weekend. If he can spin his play at Robert Trent Jones into success at Firestone, the momentum should set him up well heading into Whistling Straits. Combine that potential momentum with the links style course that the Wisconsin course presents, and we could be looking at quite a month of August for Rickie Fowler.

    Randy Holt is a staff writer for Pro Golf Now. You can follow him on Twitter @RandallPnkFloyd.

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