Can resurgent Rickie Fowler break through at LACC?

One of the game’s most magnetic and popular figures, Rickie Fowler is having a statistical renaissance in 2023.

After lingering near the bottom of the TOUR just a season ago in several key metrics, this season Fowler has engineered one of the more remarkable turnarounds in golf. It hasn’t yet manifested itself in a win – as seen with Jason Day earlier this season at the AT&T Byron Nelson – but could the ultimate breakthrough be on the horizon? And why not this week in his native California?

It may not be as farfetched as you think.

Past close calls in majors

To help illustrate how good Fowler has been at his peak, it helps to look back on just how successful he was in major championships in the past. From 2013 through the 2015 Masters, Fowler was 16-under-par in the majors, the best of any player in that span. He ranked third in birdie average (3.97) and fourth in bogey avoidance (3.25). No player had more one-putts (256) or rounds in the 60s (15) during that stretch of golf's biggest events.

In 2014, Fowler finished in the top five in all four major championships, the first player to do that since Tiger Woods nine years prior. Since the first Masters was held in 1934, Fowler’s run in 2014 is one of just seven like it in a single major championship season – and is the only instance of a player doing it without winning at least once. Fowler has eight top-five finishes in major championships in his career, tied for the most of any player without a win since 2011.

From weakness to strength

Fowler has fought his way out of some ball-striking inconsistencies. In both 2021 and 2022, he ranked 150th or worse on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach per round, a far cry from the first 11 full seasons of his career in which he had positive Strokes Gained: Approach, peaking at 15th back in 2015. Fowler hit just 62% of his greens in regulation last season, ranking 186th of 193 qualified players.

Those unsavory figures make what he’s done in 2023 all the more extraordinary. Fowler has vaulted 143 spots in Strokes Gained: Approach, going from 150th to 7th. He’s up to 31st this year in greens in regulation percentage. He already has more rounds hitting 13 or more greens (28) and 15 or more greens (10) than he did all of last season.

One of the key improvements for Fowler has been his improvement from the rough with his wedges. Last season, Fowler was getting dusted by the field when it came to average proximity from 50 to 125 yards in the rough. Rickie’s average proximity to the hole on those shots was outside of 34 feet – nearly four and a half feet worse than the PGA TOUR average. This season, although he still has room for improvement in this metric, currently tied for 97th, he’s better than the TOUR average

Incremental gains are adding up quickly for Fowler, who is 10th on the PGA TOUR this season in scoring average. A year ago, he was 111th.

Rediscovering elite putting

In 2017, Fowler led the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Total per round. While he was terrific that season from a ball-striking perspective (13th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green), his putting is what made him one of the best players in the world. Fowler made more than 41% of the putts he looked at from 10 to 15 feet that season – the TOUR average was right around 30%. From 20 to 25 feet, he made almost double the PGA TOUR average (23% vs 12%). His 0.85 Strokes Gained: Putting per round was not just a career-high mark, it led the entire TOUR in ’17.

For Fowler to be a below-average putter on TOUR just five years later was even more surprising than his deteriorating tee-to-green numbers. But that has also turned around significantly in 2023. Fowler is back in the top-50 on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting per round, up 112 spots from last season. He’s 16th in putts per green in regulation, up 108 spots from a year ago.

Fowler is back to gaining strokes with every facet of his game, with it all adding up to 1.53 Strokes Gained: Total per round, 11th-best on TOUR. Each of the last two U.S. Open winners – Jon Rahm and Matt Fitzpatrick – also had positive strokes gained averages in every key denomination entering the week of their victories.

Rickie’s last PGA TOUR win came at the WM Phoenix Open back in 2019. Every winner of that tournament since 2015 – except Fowler – has also won a major championship in their careers. Three of them – Brooks Koepka, Webb Simpson and Gary Woodland – have won the U.S. Open.

There would be no bigger crescendo to Fowler’s comeback than a big performance this week in Los Angeles.