NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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After three full seasons of uninspiring golf, Rickie Fowler is making some wholesale changes.
Near the end of this past season, Fowler parted ways with caddie Joe Skovron after a 13-year relationship. The 33-year-old Californian arrived at the Fortinet Championship with veteran caddie Ricky Romano, who has worked for Nate Lashley, Scott Piercy, Aaron Wise, Jason Kokrak and a few others since 2012. Romano, a former University of Houston golfer, is from Fowler’s hometown of Murrieta, California, and has been a friend of Fowler’s for many years.
As for Skovron, he returned to looping duties at the Presidents Cup where he was on the bag of Tom Kim, the energetic 20-year-old Korean who injected some much-needed life into the proceedings.
Shortly after that split, Fowler then ended a three-year stint with instructor John Tillery. Although Fowler was complimentary of Tillery, he has mentioned publicly the two had difficulties being on the same page when it comes to talking about the golf swing. He will now rely more on his old swing coach Butch Harmon. Fowler had been in consistent communication with Harmon during his time with Tillery, but that has since increased. He plans to visit with Harmon in Las Vegas before playing across town in this week’s Shriners Children’s Open at TPC Summerlin.
Their communication had been increasing coming into the Fortinet.
“Leading up to this week, it was about a week or week and a half where I started sending him more videos and just communicating back and forth,” Fowler said after round one of the Fortinet Championship three weeks ago. “It's been really good. I know he's excited just seeing some of the stuff I've been able to do on the range in practice.”
On top of those two massive moves, Fowler also has made some significant equipment choices. The most meaningful of those is deciding to eschew his normal muscleback blade irons in exchange for Cobra’s King Tour cavity-back prototypes.
These are larger, more forgiving irons traditionally meant to be played by the mere mortals among us.
“I was due for some new irons, which typically after the season or in the fall is when I usually do a new set,” Fowler said. “Ben (Schomin), our Cobra rep who caddied for me at Memphis, he sent me our new MBs, CBs and the Tour Forged. I kind of went through testing on my own, just hitting them, getting numbers and seeing flights and getting feedback. Ultimately, I decided to go with the ones that would be definitely bigger than the MBs, what I played in the past, but just more forgiving but with all the same characteristics.
“I figure if I was getting all the same numbers but they were more forgiving, why make it any harder on yourself? Kind of check the ego at the door and play what works.”
On the putter side, Fowler has been changing flatsticks more than any other player on tour, so it’s difficult to keep track of the timeline. He had long used a Scotty Cameron Newport 2 prototype – which featured a head initially made for Tiger Woods – before going to a Scotty X5 prototype. He also had been experimenting with a Cobra King Stingray 20 prototype that appeared during competition at the Travelers Championship, but that didn’t last long. Fowler then went back to his trusty Newport 2 for a spell this summer. However, as of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, he is using a Newport Plus. Fowler said he used at least five different putters in tournament play this past season.
He’s hoping this latest change will stick. His once sublime putting has become a sore spot in recent years. He fell to a new low on the greens this past season, ranking No. 161 in strokes gained putting.
“Hit a putt, basically loved it from the first putt, so that went in the bag that week and hasn't come out,” Fowler said of the Newport Plus he found in Memphis.
The early returns on these changes are encouraging. Fowler finished tied for sixth in the Fortinet Championship, his best tour finish since last year’s C.J. Cup. He ranked No. 25 in strokes gained approach for the week, gaining more than two strokes over the field.
It would be a turnaround for the ages if Fowler were to be able to rekindle his past form. He finished No. 134 and No. 133 in the FedEx Cup the past two seasons if you don’t count LIV defections, and Fowler is now No. 153 in the Official World Golf Ranking. He had finished in the top 12 of the OWGR for five consecutive seasons in 2014-18.
Sean Fairholm