FLOURTOWN, Pa. — Rickie Fowler heard about the complaints — mostly from puzzled fans — after he received an invitation to play next weekend in the PGA Championship.
His retort? Keep the whining coming.
“The negative stuff, I would say, kind of helps me in a way because it fuels me to kind of go out and prove people wrong,” Fowler said.
Fowler answered his critics at the Truist Championship with the kind of play that showed he can still be considered a threat to win, even if he actually hasn’t taken a tournament since 2023 .
“I’ve been happy with where my game’s been at for quite a while. I just haven’t really seen the product of the work I’m putting in or what I feel like I can produce,” he said. “This was a little better day.”
Fowler reeled off eight birdies and a bogey to shoot a 7-under-63 on Thursday at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, leaving him two strokes behind leader Keith Mitchell.
“You obviously want to come out and prove yourself,” Fowler said. “I haven’t been playing all that well last year and the start of this year. It hasn’t been very far off.”
The 36-year-old Fowler absorbed some criticism this week when the PGA Championship released its field for next week at Quail Hollow.
The PGA Championship offered an invitation to Fowler, who has plunged to No. 125 in the world and missed the Masters. There is a category for players in the most recent Ryder Cup — Fowler was at Marco Simone in Italy — provided they are among the top 100 in the world.
Fowler’s first PGA Tour victory was at Quail Hollow in 2012. His best finish at the PGA Championship came in 2014 when he tied for third. Fowler was ranked 146th in the world when he received an invitation into the 2022 PGA Championship.
Fowler, a six-time winner on the Tour, has played in nine events this year without a top-10 finish and needed a sponsor exemption to play this weekend at the suburban Philadelphia course.
It’s not quite the way he wanted to qualify for tournaments — but Fowler will take it.
“A number of exemptions this year, which I’m very, very happy for and appreciate it from the sponsors and the tournament directors,” he said. “You want to come out and play well. So off to a good start and looking forward to keeping it rolling.”
Fowler’s winless streak stretches to July 2023 when he made a 12-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole of the Rocket Mortgage Classic and outlasted Collin Morikawa and Adam Hadwin to win in Detroit.
His putting was strong at the Cricket Club.
Fowler made a 13-foot birdie putt on the par-4 seventh hole that kept him among the leaders and finished with a birdie on 18 to cap his outing. He called the the birdie the shot of his round after his bogey-5 on No. 17.
“I think making birdie there, hit a nice drive off of the last, good shot in there with 6-iron,” he said. “Hard to pick out one shot. I’ll pick the 18th hole.”
Maybe his effort was the result of a course where 10 players shot under 65.
He also didn’t want to play catch-up with rain in the forecast.
“My body’s feeling better, kind of allowing me to go play golf,” Fowler said. “We made a minor adjustment yesterday, put my irons a degree up. I felt like I was making good swings and zeroing things out, and the ball was just hanging a little right from what I wanted to see. So it was good to kind of see things tighten up with irons today.”
For anyone else who thinks he can’t win, Fowler recalled a 2015 Sports Illustrated player poll that named him one of the most overrated players on the tour. He promptly went out and won the The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
“That worked out all right that week,” he said.
