At last!
This Rickie Fowler expression says all you need to know about what it felt like to win for the first time in 1,610 days
The day was coming when Rickie Fowler would finally be a PGA Tour winner again. Or at least it seemed so given the recent close calls, the top-10 finishes and the positive attitude from the 34-year-old himself as he tried to crawl back to prominence in the world of golf.
That said what might have felt inevitable wasn’t guaranteed. So when Fowler holed the 12-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole at Detroit Golf Club to beat Adam Hadwin and Collin Morikawa and win the Rocket Mortgage Classic, it was only natural for the man who had just won for the first time in nearly four-and-a-half years to show some emotion.
Containing his emotions was something Fowler had done well during the back nine Sunday, when some makeable birdie putts on the 14th and 15th holes didn’t fall, and his lead coming into the final round had disappeared. The CBS crew marveled in the way that Fowler didn’t let on whether he was frustrated or not, instead just moving forward.
Similarly, Fowler didn’t get too high after hitting one of the most clutch shots in his PGA Tour career. Needing a birdie on the par-4 18th to get into a playoff—a hole that had only yielded five birdies on the day—Fowler hit this approach shot that got a lot of people excited if not the golfer himself.
And then there was his expressionless reaction when hitting this approach shot in the playoff to set up the winning putt.
So it was that when Fowler finally could officially savor victory, it let out a wry little smile that had been held in for quite a long time.