Rickie Fowler completed another in a run of solid performances at the Wells Fargo Championship with a tie for 14th.
That has given him a boost in the world rankings, where he is now back inside the top 50 for the first time in two years, five months, at World No.50.
Fowler initially dropped out of the world’s top 50 after missing the cut in his final tournament of 2020, the Mayakoba Golf Classic, that December. The World No.52 position he held following that tournament was the lowest he had been since 2014, but things got considerably worse before they got better.
At one point, last September, Fowler was World No.185 with no real suggestion a turnaround would be coming soon following a run of two missed cuts and a tie for 64th in his season-ending FedEx St Jude Championship.
However, behind the scenes, Fowler was addressing his poor form. In August, he split from his long-time caddie Joe Skovron and the following month, he reunited with coach Butch Harmon. Soon after, he reminded fans of the talent that once took him to World No.4 and, in 2014, saw him become only the third player after Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods to finish in the top-five of all four Majors in a calendar year.
Fowler’s upturn in form was evident in his first tournament of the 2022/23 season when he finished tied for sixth at the Fortinet Championship, and that proved anything but a one-off despite missing the cut in the Shriners Children’s Open that followed it.
There was more encouragement at the Zozo Championship with a tie for second and he has enjoyed two more top-10 finishes in 2023, including in the designated event, the WM Phoenix Open in February
Had Fowler’s return to the top 50 come a handful of weeks earlier, he would have qualified for The Masters for the first time since 2020. That wasn’t to be, and the 34-year-old admitted before last week’s tournament that “it sucked” he had narrowly missed out on a return to Augusta National.
However, he drew on the positives, saying: “Knowing kind of what I had been doing and kind of moving back up the world ranking, that at least gave me something to look forward to knowing that I would be in Majors moving forward and hopefully be back at Augusta next year. We were close, but I put myself in a little bit too big of a hole to get back there."
After Fowler’s latest impressive performance, there is every reason to think he will soon climb even higher in the world rankings as the season progresses.
