Rickie Fowler figures four top-five major finishes in 2014 plus a victory at the 2015 Players Championship signal he's ready for the next step in golf -- winning a major title.
Rickie Fowler of the United States, known as much for flashy fashions
as his shotmaking, produced a landmark 2014 campaign. (AFP/Harry How)
AUGUSTA: Rickie Fowler figures four top-five major finishes
in 2014 plus a victory at the 2015 Players Championship signal he's
ready for the next step in golf - winning a major title.
The 27-year-old American, considered among the best players who have
not won a major, takes a huge confidence boost from his success in the
past two seasons into Thursday's opening round of the 80th Masters."Last year was definitely a step in the right direction for me, after good finishes in 2014 in the majors," Fowler said. "I feel like the perfect storm, combine 2014 and 2015 together, equals winning a major, that's the way I look at it."
Fowler, known as much for flashy fashions as his shotmaking,
produced a landmark 2014 campaign, sharing fifth at the Masters, second
at the US and British Opens and third at the PGA Championship.
Only three other players have achieved top-five finishes in
all four majors in the same year - Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and
reigning US Open and Masters champion Jordan Spieth last year. But among
that fabulous foursome, Fowler was the only one who failed to win a
major title in the run.
So he responded last year with a comeback win at the
Players, took the European Tour's Scottish Open in July and added the US
PGA Deutsche Bank Championship last September and a European Tour title
earlier this year at Abu Dhabi, one of five top-10 showings he has
produced this year.
Fowler said winning titles has brought him more confidence than his
major near-misses. "Winning for sure," Fowler said. "Obviously
contending in majors and being up there in 2014 helped me have the
confidence that I did when I was in contention and had the chances last
year."Without having those final days in the majors, I wouldn't have had the success I did last year, so I feel like it's kind of been all a little bit of a process, but definitely more confidence has come from winning."
Instead of trying to achieve a major win, Fowler now believes he will achieve it. "Whenever I have the chance to be in contention, it's something that I, maybe before, wasn't quite prepared for, didn't have the exact belief or confidence," Fowler said.
"It was more like a feeling of trying to go get it done. Now I believe I can go do it and I want to go do it."
For all his success, Fowler is relatively under the radar
this week compared to the attention paid to the four ranked ahead of him
in the world - top man Jason Day, number two Jordan Spieth, third-rated
Rory McIlroy and number four Bubba Watson.
"I'm fine with sneaking around," Fowler said. "My game is
better than it was at the start of the year. I didn't feel like I had my
best to start the year, but I was able to minimise my mistakes and get
the most out of it."
- AFP/de
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