Rickie Fowler turns to prescription sunglasses for help
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DUBLIN, Ohio – Rickie Fowler has long set fashion trends on the golf course so seeing him in slick sunglasses during an overcast opening round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide was not overly surprising.
But the five-time PGA TOUR winner revealed his often-imitated fashion style was not the primary reason for wearing the glasses at Muirfield Village through a rainy Thursday. The glasses are in fact prescription and have been a huge help as Fowler continues his climb out of an on-course slump.
“I always struggled with seeing more than say 150 yards and little things far away,” Fowler revealed after a tidy 3-under 69 to open the tournament.
"It's not enough to where I really wanted to try going to Lasik or anything like that. I've always been able to see up close fine, I don't have any problem with that. The only time I start to struggle with some depth perception is in low light situations, so early morning or as the sun's going down. And so I just wanted to try another option before going to Lasik down the road.”
Fowler is coming off a T8 at the PGA Championship, where he also had the glasses, his first top-10 on TOUR since January of 2020. The eyewear has been another missing piece of the puzzle as he fought through swing changes.
The 32-year-old had experimented with eyewear in the past at home but his swing had been so rapid that glasses would not stay in place. With his new more measured swing things have changed.
“I always felt that with the nose piece, with how much I move sometimes in the swing it would get in the way and I would lose sight of the ball, so I didn't like glasses forever,” Fowler explained.
“But now that things have been cleaned up and I swing a little bit more within myself, that gave me the opportunity to try standard sunglasses without prescription and I saw that I wasn't squinting as much, I wasn't stressing my eyes as much, especially with it being bright out too, especially in Florida.
“So I said, shoot, why don't we try prescription. Now I can actually see the ball land.”
Fowler finished runner up at Muirfield Village in his first appearance in 2010 and again in 2017. At 126th in the FedExCup and 101st in the world rankings he is also chasing a kick up the season long standings and a berth in the U.S. Open at his hometown Torrey Pines from June 17-20.
Fowler must forge his way inside the world top 60 via his Muirfield Village result or get through 36-hole final qualifying on Monday – a quest he wasn’t concerned about.
“I've done it before, been there a handful of times… it's been a quite a few years, but no, it wasn't something I was like necessarily bummed out about, I put myself in this position. So we got a tee time on Monday, let's go qualify and get our spot at Torrey Pines,” Fowler, who got through qualifying twice as an amateur said.
“The biggest thing that I learned from those 36-hole days is don't try and press it. Kind of you're playing a little bit more conservatively and just kind of keep moving forward. I was talking with a couple of these guys yesterday, just kind of saying, don't trip over your shoelaces, you don't have to do anything super special, just go play golf and keep moving forward.”