[ad_1]
TULSA, Okla. — Rickie Fowler does not offer many windows into his psyche.
It has always been his greatest strength, particularly away from the golf course. He is measured, polite and never controversial — a marketing executive’s dream — which is one reason he’s been such a ubiquitous commercial presence in our lives for nearly a decade. He has been good at golf, certainly, but no one in the game has ever been better at building up his popularity while at the same time presenting a friendly blank canvas to the world.
There are times, though, when he offers just a sliver of an opening. Monday of PGA Championship week at Southern Hills was one of those rare times. He said that of late, he’s been working with someone on the mental side of his game, just trying to accept negative thoughts as they come, then flush them out before he stands over the ball. He didn’t want to name the person, however.
“I don’t know if I want to throw names out there or not,” Fowler said. “I won’t mention names yet.”
It’s no secret Fowler has been struggling the past few years. Once ranked as high as No. 4 in the world, he’s fallen to 146th in the Official World Golf Rankings. In nine starts in 2022, he’s missed the cut five times. It’s been more than three years since he won a tournament. He is in the field this week because he finished T-8 at the 2021 PGA Championship, but is in danger of missing the next two majors without a dramatic rise this summer.
“Going through it, it’s never fun,” Fowler said. “I’ve actually enjoyed it, as much as it sucked. I’ve definitely found myself — not that I ever fell out of love with the game or anything like that — but I’ve embraced the grind and the aspect of just taking every day and going out and enjoying it, even though we have been in tough spots.”
Even before this stretch of disappointing results, Fowler was a bit of an enigma within the game. Although he didn’t win at the same clip as some of his peers (five times in the past decade), he…
[ad_2]
Source : espn
