2023 Open Championship: Top 10 Power Rankings at Hoylake

I think Rickie Fowler would gladly take 15-under-par at Hoylake once more.

That’s usually plenty low enough to get it done at The Open Championship, but the American was unable to track down wire-to-wire champ Rory McIlroy in 2014 here at Royal Liverpool.

“Hoylake is a past Open where I had a very good week in 2014,” Fowler said in an article on TheOpen.com. “We were trying to chase down Rory. He never really gave us a chance of it but it’s a place that I’ve had good success at and it’s awesome to get back to a place where I’ve played well and had such a good finish in a major.”

It’s wild to think that Fowler didn’t even qualify for last year’s Open Championship. Now, he’s among the favorites to win it.

A big reason is his win two starts ago at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. It was Fowler’s first win in four years and it saw him beat a two-time major champion Collin Morikawa and a PGA Tour winner in Adam Hadwin in a playoff.

That victory was a culmination of a dozen-plus months of elite golf after Fowler bottomed out south of the Top-150 in the Official World Golf Ranking in 2022.

Fowler’s win was his fifth straight Top-15 and eighth in the last nine. That streak snapped last week at the Genesis Scottish Open, but he still carded three rounds in the 60s at The Renaissance Club en route to T-42nd.

Fowler is making his 12th Open Championship start this week. He has made 10 cuts on the links land with a pair of top-fives.

His high water mark at this event was his T-2nd finish in 2014. Fowler carded 69-69-68-67 (-15) to finish two off McIlroy’s pace.

Fowler ranks Top-10 on the PGA Tour this season in total strokes gained per round (1.804, 8th), SG off-the-tee (1.382, 8th), and SG approach (.781, 7th).