Combination of Form and Focus Will Make Rickie Fowler Formidable Open Contender

ST ANDREWS, Fife — Rickie Fowler knows that his time is now.

In the last 12 months, the 26-year-old has seen Rory McIlroy (also 26) and Jordan Spieth (21) divide the last four majors between them. Fowler has been there or thereabouts—he finished in the top five at all four majors in 2014 and has won twice on tour already this year—but he knows there is a gap starting to open up, in both perception and achievements, between himself and two men he considers his peers.

“I mean, a good start would be to become a major champion,” Fowler said, when asked about “catching up” with McIlroy and Spieth. “That’s something I’ve always dreamed of and have wanted to accomplish.

“I do have some work to do. I need to continue winning. I think that’s the biggest thing, putting myself in positions to win.”

Fowler may have finished near the top of the leaderboard in all four majors in 2014, but it was only later in the year that he was actually in the hunt to win one of them. At last year’s Open, he was in the final group with McIlroy, although he never actually led the tournament at any point.

That changed at the PGA Championship—where he assumed the top spot, alone, early in the back nine—and so became the first major chance Fowler truly felt like he had blown, when McIlroy again held it together better down the stretch.

This year, Fowler has not been so impressive in the majors, finishing a moderate 12th at the Masters and then missing the cut in disappointing fashion at the U.S. Open: “I really felt like at Chambers [Bay] I could play the golf course well, and I just kind of got it going the wrong way.”

When he has been in contention in 2015, however, he has started to show glimpses of the killer instinct that has already propelled McIlroy and Spieth to glory. At the Players Championship in May, he beat Sergio Garcia and Kevin Kisner in a playoff to conclude one of the most dramatic PGA Tour finishes in the last decade, a feat he repeated last week at the Scottish Open—when he took the lead for the first time on the 72nd hole to ultimately win by one.

Lynne Sladky/Associated Press

“It’s definitely a learning process, learning to win,” he added. “Last year was big for me, putting myself in those situations. [And] some of it goes back to playing Tuesday games with Phil [Mickelson] and the boys, being in situations where you have to step up and make things happen.

“I’ve definitely been in situations that I can relate that have helped me with the finishes at the Players and the Scottish.

“It’s definitely not easy out here playing against the best players in the world, and it’s nice to finally have a multiple-win season.”

Fowler’s win in Gullane confirmed what many have long seen, that this is a player who finds the particular vagaries of links golf mostly to his liking.

In 2013, Mickelson won the Scottish Open and followed it up by lifting the Claret Jug at Muirfield. That precedent, coupled with Fowler’s past form at St Andrews—in 2010, he rallied back to finish 14th despite opening with a round of 79—underlines why many consider him to have a great chance of closing that gap on Spieth, who arrived in Scotland late on Monday, and the absent McIlroy this week.

As Tony Mogan of the International Business Times wrote:

"

Fowler's decision to make his final preparations for the Open in the UK means he is rested after his success on 12 July. He will be in tune with the conditions at St Andrews having spent most of the past two weeks in the east coast of Scotland. While Spieth has not fared too badly himself in his preparation winning the John Deere Open in style on 12 July – his fourth PGA Tour win of the year – he will be playing catch up after the travel and time change.

"

For his part, Fowler said Tuesday of his 2010 experience, “That was really the time that I believed that I could play links golf and saw that I could put together some rounds in some tough conditions here. I love the golf course. It’s a course that you learn more and more every time you play it, and the more times I did play it, I got more comfortable.”

In that regard, Fowler is at the forefront of a new wave of American players who are slowly shaking off the perception that they are a nation of professional golfers who do not like to travel.

Links golf is a different test, with few obvious sight lines off most tees and even some blind shots into greens, but in a way, that is the golf Fowler is most familiar with. The weather may have been better at the Murrieta Valley driving range—in California, back when he was a teenager indulging his passion for the game with late-night sessions—but the lack of visual stimuli was very similar to what he will see this week.

At an early age, Fowler had to use his imagination if he wanted to focus his practice, conjuring hazards and pin placements in his mind’s eye to test his ability to hit certain shots and shapes on demand.

“I was basically hitting into a bare field and kind of had to visualise the shots that I wanted to hit, and I feel like that's what you have to do in links golf,” Fowler said. “Sometimes you don't exactly have specific targets and you have to see your shots before you hit them. So it kind of took me back to how I learned the game and was able to have some fun and be creative.”

Jon Super/Associated Press

That would not explain Fowler’s acceptance of the vagaries of the weather, of course, another key aspect of the links experience. But perhaps that hits upon some of the same character elements that make him something of an adrenaline junkie—Fowler was a talented BMX rider in his youth and continues to indulge that side of himself where possible—the need to be challenged, to be tested, to face something different and hard and overcome it.

Some observers will remember his second Open at Royal St George's, where he played alongside McIlroy in driving rain and 30 mph winds during Saturday’s third round. McIlroy, driven to distraction by conditions he must have grown up playing in, shot 74, while Fowler, with his surfer-dude hair and wide-brimmed cap, simply strapped on his rain gear, shortened his backswing and navigated his way to a 68 that put him on the fringes of contention. (He would ultimately record his first major top-five finish.)

“It was nasty,” Fowler recalled. “Probably the worst weather I had played in to that point. I think the biggest thing for me was embracing the challenge.”

Jack Nicklaus once revealed that, prior to any major, whenever he saw a player complain about the course or the weather conditions, he used to mentally tick them off the list of players he had to beat that week—they had already beaten themselves.

That will never be an issue with Fowler, particularly in the Open.

“There's probably some guys in the field that may look down on it and may think it's going to be harder than it should be, and I try to just go out and have fun with it,” Fowler agrees. “You can't pack it in, you've got to figure it out.

“It may not be the warmest weather, the driest weather, but you've got a tee time. Go tee it up and make the best of it.”

He has the game, he has the mindset and, thanks to Spieth and McIlroy, he has the motivation.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise stated.