Arguably the PGA Tour’s flashiest star: popular with fans, long on galleries, but short on career accomplishments. To whom does this backhanded honor belong?
Today, it’s Rickie Fowler. Thirty years ago, though, it could’ve been Fred Couples.
Fowler, who heads into the Masters a year removed from his closest brush yet with a major championship, could do worse than to go down as this generation’s Couples. But five years ago, he seemed certain to do better. He tallied top-five finishes in all four of 2014’s majors. Early the next year, he stared down Sergio Garcia with a blistering final round to win the Players Championship — at the time, the biggest win of his career. He seemed certain for bigger and better things (remember the new Big Three?).
Fast-forward to 2019, though, and that Players win four years ago is undoubtedly still Fowler’s high-water mark. Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, the other two-thirds of that short-lived trio, now have seven major championships between them. Fowler is still sitting on zero.
Enter Couples, who — like Fowler — was one of the fan favorites of his day: good looking, a sporty dresser, and a big hitter with deep galleries and a slew of endorsement deals. Like Fowler, Couples and success met early. Couples was 23 years old when he won his first PGA Tour event in 1983; Fowler was the same age when he won the Wells Fargo Championship in 2012. And like Fowler (who turned 30 in December), Couples exited his 20s without a major championship to his name; he was 32 when he won the 1992 Masters.
There are other similarities. Couples used a persimmon-headed driver well into the metal woods era (how good is the sound of his tee shot on No. 15 at Augusta in ’92?). Fowler’s Cobra driver isn’t quite that eccentric, but only two other players on the PGA Tour game a Cobra driver, so Fowler’s gamer is the literal definition of “unusual.”
And Couples finished his career with one of the shakier claims to a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame: 15 wins on the PGA Tour (three more on the European Tour), a single major championship, and a stint as the world’s No. 1-ranked player. At his current trajectory, Fowler (five PGA Tour wins, plus two on the Euro Tour, with 10 or so good years still ahead of him) seems destined for a similar resume.’ Public goodwill undoubtedly played into Couples’ selection to the Hall; assuming Fowler’s career wins total finishes near Couples’, is there any doubt that his popularity will put him over the top?
The day after Couples’ Masters win in 1992, the Los Angeles Daily News wrote that the weekend seemed destined to be a “coming-out party,” with Couples certain to add more majors. He never did.
Fowler’s chances of taking home one of golf’s biggest titles — eventually — seems just as likely. Maybe it happens this week, and maybe not. For a guy who’s finished in the top five at a major eight times times (including three second-place finishes), it seems inevitable that, if nothing else, Fowler will stumble into a major championship one of these days.
But that sense of inevitability did little for Couples after 1992. If Fowler is to avoid the underachivement that haunts Couples’ career, then eventually, he’s going to need more than just galleries and inevitability going for him.