BOISE, Idaho – Sat down with Rickie Fowler Tuesday for a taped interview to be aired on Wednesday’s Golf Central and in the Nationwide Tour broadcast this week. For lack of a more eloquent way of saying it, the kid is just flat out ‘cool.’
No pretentiousness, no sense of entitlement (often the case with young players signing big endorsement contracts, like Fowler recently did with Titleist), and no facade whatsoever.
Also got to meet his parents, and it quickly became obvious where he inherited all those traits, including the coolness.
This week, the Nationwide Tour puts forth the strongest field in its 20-year history. At last count more than 30 current fully-exempt members of the PGA Tour are playing, in addition to many other non-exempt members. It’s an unforeseen benefit of the PGA Tour playoffs.
Still, Fowler has to be considered one of the favorites even though this is his professional debut. He’s already played in one Nationwide event this year, as an amateur, and lost in a playoff. And he’s coming off what he called his most rewarding experience to date – a 4-0 record as part of the dominant American Walker Cup team.
There are no guarantees in golf, and Fowler knows that, but he has set lofty goals. For many reasons [some of which can be read in Randall Mell’s recent column] I think the kid has a far better chance than most at becoming a star in the very near future.
Wouldn’t that be cool.
