A low-key week for Taylor is about to turn loud

Alan Bratton liked the low numbers. Scores are usually the first data that coaches consult when seeking new recruits, but these were outliers that indicated Bratton was looking at special players. Rickie Fowler was 15 years old and still wearing braces when he shot 62 to win Southern California’s high school championship in 2004. He was the first freshman since Tiger Woods to win that title. RELATED: Fans at home will be able to contribute to TaylorMade Driving Relief’s COVID-19 relief efforts thanks to PGA TOUR Charities’ online and Text-To-Give donation platforms powered by GoFundMe Charity. Click here to donate. MORE: TaylorMade Driving Relief to benefit COVID-19 relief efforts | Live golf set to return | Seminole Golf Club ready for its close-up This was an earlier time, though, before the widespread adoption of smartphones and social media, so it was still possible for such a sensation to stay a secret. Fowler hadn’t competed much outside California, so Bratton, then the assistant golf coach at Oklahoma State, thought he was ahead of the curve when he watched Fowler at the Western Junior. He kept his distance to avoid tipping off other coaches. There was just one problem. Fowler won the tournament. With a final-round 64, including a birdie on 18, for a one-stroke win. The secret was out. A few years later, Bratton heard about another special player going low. The tip came from a recruit who casually mentioned about playing a tournament where the winner shot 61 and won by 13. Bratton, who had become Oklahoma State’s head coach in 2013, needed to know the name of the kid who dusted the field by more than a dozen strokes. It was Matthew Wolff. While their stints in Stillwater, Oklahoma, were separated by a decade, ties run deep between Cowboys. Fowler returns to his alma mater often, playing golf with each member of the team and giving the players his phone number. Wolff’s team had dinner at Fowler’s house when they were in town for a tournament. Fowler was on hand to congratulate Wolff when he won. So it made sense for Fowler and Wolff to be teammates when the TaylorMade Driving Relief match was in the works. They’ll need to tap into their penchant for shooting low scores if they want to succeed May 17 at Seminole Golf Club. Their opponents in this four-ball skins game – Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson — also have something in common. They’re the current and former World No. 1s. “I’ve seen some fan reaction saying how much of a favorite Rory and DJ are, so Matt and I are going in as underdogs,â€� Fowler says. “We’re ready to bring the upset.â€� Team chemistry could be an equalizer for the former Cowboys, though McIlroy revealed recently that he and Johnson had discussed teaming for this year’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Fowler and Wolff met when Fowler returned to campus for homecoming. “We clicked right off the bat,â€� Wolff says. For obvious reasons. Both developed unique swings while growing up on public golf courses in Southern California. For Fowler, it was on the Murrieta Valley Golf Range, which co-owners Bill Teasdall and Barry McDonnell ran out of a single-story portable building on land that used to be a horse stable. McDonnell became Fowler’s first teacher. Wolff spent his formative years taking lessons from George Gankas at Westlake Golf Course, a 5,000-yard layout with artificial-turf mats on its driving range. In junior golf, both players heard critics say they should change their unique swings. Neither heeded the advice. Bratton liked that each player developed his own swing and wasn’t afraid to stick to it, even in the face of criticism. He says he could recruit both players with his ears, not his eyes, because of the quality of the sound at impact. “I love to look for natural swings,â€� Bratton says. “It doesn’t mean it has to be different, but I certainly want a kid who understands how to make adjustments on their own. You see a lot of kids who are trying to do something that someone else told them to do. There’s incredible instruction out there, but sometimes kids don’t understand or try to do something that’s not natural to them.â€� Though Fowler can’t match Wolff’s swing speed, Bratton says there are similarities to their playing styles, as well. “Once they make up their mind, they wind up and go,â€� says their former coach. “They look like they’re having fun when they play.â€� For each fan donation that is made using a Mastercard, Mastercard has announced a donation match program through which they will match the first $250,000 of all fan donations made through the PGA TOUR Charities’ GoFundMe platform. Click here for more.

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ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Rory McIlroy beamed as he grabbed the hand of Tiger Woods and excitedly pointed up to a window high in the Rusacks Hotel that flanks the 18th fairway at St. Andrews. The pair then waved animatedly in the direction of 22-month-old Poppy McIlroy, daughter of the 21-time PGA TOUR winner and four-time major champion as they finished up play in The Open Championship’s Celebration of Champions on Monday. Just moments earlier they had posed for photos together on the Swilken Bridge, with 18-time major champion Jack Nicklaus no less, but this moment was arguably just as incredible. It was raw. It was pure. And in an age where renumeration can dominate headlines, it showed what this is really all about. Being part of, or bearing witness to, history. This is indeed a very special week – one that will ultimately crown the champion golfer of the year – but one that is so much bigger than any leaderboard. For this is the 150th Open Championship. At the home of golf. It is a celebration of the game born in the Scottish sheep paddocks around this area that has now blossomed into a game that will see hundreds of thousands of fans swarm through the gates this week. It is a game that is still inherently open to all and enjoyed by multiple generations. And while Poppy likely won’t ever remember the special time where Woods, an 82-time TOUR winner with 15 majors – two of which came at St. Andrews – made her the center of attention despite being in the middle of a spiritual setting on golfs grandest stage… Rory will. “If you had of told 10-year-old me that I would play in something like this I’d have hardly believed it. Playing with my idol, ahead of such a special week, it’s just really really cool,” McIlroy said. Woods and McIlroy were part of the last four-person team that included two-time Open champion Lee Trevino and 2018 Women’s Open champion Georgia Hall to take on the first, second, 17th and 18th holes at the Old Course in a better ball format competition that, as the name suggests, celebrates the former champions of The Open. Fans were treated to a cavalcade of legends including gems of the past like Tom Watson and Gary Player to current stars Jordan Spieth and Collin Morikawa among many more. Nicklaus is also here to become just the third American, behind Benjamin Franklin and Bobby Jones, to be given honorary citizenship of the town having won The Open here in 1970 and 1978. This was pinch yourself stuff. Tell your grandkids stuff. One golf analyst was going to leave early to buy a desk fan for his non-air-conditioned accommodation before the light bulb went off… when will you see something like this ever again? The fans cheered for them all. But they saved the loudest roars for Woods who will tee it up Thursday in likely his last real chance of making it three wins at the iconic venue. Despite the numerous complications he faces with his body following a car accident last year, Woods showed glimpses of the smarts that helped him dominate in 2000 and plot his way to another win in 2005 as he birdied two of the four holes. If there was a way to count it, it’s possible a world record number of phone photos would’ve been taken in the four-hole stretch. A chef at The Old Course Hotel on the 17th fairway snuck away from his burners and grabbed his pictures through the glass while down below him, sitting out on a grass lawn, was former Masters champion Adam Scott and his father Phil, also realizing the significance of the occasion enough to come out and soak it all up. “For a lot of guys who haven’t been here like myself, to come here, look out the hotel, walk down 17, 18 on Sunday when you have the public just walking, that’s the coolest experience as a fan, as a golfer, anyone could ask for because it’s a game for everyone,” defending champion Morikawa said. “The stretch of just teeing off on No. 1, just seeing 17, just seeing 18, you feel the history, and you feel the importance of everything that has come before us at this golf course and golf in general. It’s really cool to be here.” For the record, the team of Sir Nick Faldo, Louis Oosthuizen, Zach Johnson and John Daly – all winners at St. Andrews – posted the low score Monday to claim bragging rights over the fellow former champs. They won be three shots and perhaps foreshadowed what might be a birdie fest later in the week. Some are fearful the modern golfer might have usurped The Old Course … Nicklaus isn’t one of them. “They might shoot low. So what? That’s sort of the way I look at it. They’re shooting low now compared to what they shot 100 years ago. But times change and golfers get better, equipment gets better, conditions get better,” Nicklaus said. “I don’t think it really makes a whole lot of difference, frankly. It’s St. Andrews and it is what it is, and it will produce a good champion. It always has. That’s the way I look at it. Bobby Jones always said a golfer’s resume isn’t complete unless he’s won at St. Andrews.” And so we await which golfer will complete his resume – but ultimately – just being part of this iconic week – is enough.

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