Sleeper Picks: Sanderson Farms Championship

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CROMWELL, Conn. – As uncomfortable as it was to struggle with his game, Rickie Fowler had a firm grasp of perspective. It’s the nature of golf, he knew, and he was surrounded by great friends who shared that knowledge and could commiserate. Always, Fowler embraced the belief that things would turn around, and sure enough, he enters this week’s Travelers Championship buffeted by several layers of positive news. On a personal front, he and wife Allison announced Tuesday that they were expecting their first child, a daughter, in November. Fowler, 32, said they knew about the pregnancy in mid-March but the joy has really hit home since they made it public. “I was more excited to be able to share with people and see and hear their excitement,” said Fowler, who married Allison in 2019. Nothing surpasses that personal-life thrill, of course, but Fowler concedes that it’s nice, too, to know that his golf-life is trending upward. He was T8 (PGA Championship) and T11 (the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday) in his most recent starts, the first time since January of 2020 that he has posted back-to-back top-15 finishes. To show how rough the ride has been, consider that at this point in June of 2019, Fowler was in familiar territory, anchored at No. 14 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Today, he’s 91st. “A lot of work was put in over the last year, year-and-a-half,” said Fowler. “But the last few months have been a bit more of just going out and not working so much about the swing, but just playing golf and hitting shots.” Nowhere does the uptick in his golf world transcend more flavorfully than in the knowledge of his confirmed spot in the upcoming Open Championship (July 15-18, Royal St. George’s). It wasn’t fun for Fowler to answer so many questions about missing the Masters in April or last week’s U.S. Open, but he graciously accepted it as part of the landscape. Thanks to a strong performance at Royal Portrush in 2019, Fowler finished T6 in the Open Championship and that exemption was carried over when the R&A canceled the 2020 Open because of the pandemic. “It’s great (to be in),” said Fowler, whose streak of 39 consecutive starts in the major championships was halted when he missed this year’s Masters. Instead of basking in the aura of Augusta National, he watched Sunday’s final round at Tiger Woods’ house. He then failed to get through a final qualifier for the U.S. Open, so while friends and colleagues took on the Torrey Pines challenge, Fowler played morning rounds at local courses in the Jupiter, Florida, area. Not how he envisioned his Father’s Day weekend being spent, but his emotions are firmly set in a favorable mode. “Especially going over to (the Open) where I’ve had a lot of success. I love playing links. It’s the type of golf that you have a lot of options and it’s more about picking out what shot you want to hit and playing golf and not working about how the swing looks. “It’s just executing shots.” Simple stuff, said Fowler, who prepares for his first appearance at the Travelers Championship since 2013, then looks forward to next week when he is the face of the Rocket Mortgage Classic. His personal life and professional world seem to be in sync, which is a good thing for one of the PGA TOUR’s most upbeat personalities. “With the finishes I’m coming off, I definitely expect myself to be up there and continue to ride the wave that we have started.”

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PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan met with select members of the media on Sunday at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, touching on a variety of topics. A few of the highlights: 2019 PRESIDENTS CUP QUALIFYING. The 2019 Presidents Cup in Australia is scheduled for the week of Dec. 9 – two months later in the year than when the 2017 event at Liberty National was played. Monahan expects adjustments in when teams will be formed; in 2017, qualification ended after the second FedExCup Playoffs event. “I think that there will probably be more flexibility in 2019 than there might be in a different year, just based on timing,� he said. “I think the captain selections would probably move themselves closer towards the competition than the end of the FedExCup season. The specifics of that, we’re kind of working on right now.� Monahan said the TOUR will assess, as it always does, the format of the Presidents Cup, but that there will not be an overreaction to the U.S. Team’s lopsided victory at Liberty National. “This is not about responding every year to what the score is,� Monahan said. “You go back and you got to look at the next 20, 40 years and make certain that you got a format that’s sustainable. … It’s hard to say where it will net out but at this point, the same rules are going to apply as we go forward, which is the team with more points is going to win.� 2019 PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP. Monahan said that when the PGA TOUR schedule is revised for the 2018-19 season, THE PLAYERS Championship will be played on the third weekend of March. THE PLAYERS will be moving to March starting that year, while the PGA Championship moves from August to May, allowing the FedExCup Playoffs to be moved up to an earlier completion. Monahan also said the 2019 portion of the schedule will once again be held in Hawaii, with the Sentry Tournament of Champions in the first week of January, followed by the Sony Open in Hawaii. In another schedule tidbit, Monahan expects to have a week off between the end of the 2018-19 season and the start of the 2019-20 season. “It’s likely that you would see a little bit of separation,� he said. He added that “good progress� has been made toward finalizing 2018-19 schedule and that it may be announced “in a couple months.� RICKIE’S UNTUCKED SHIRT. Consider Monahan a fan of Rickie Fowler’s Hawaiian shirt that he debuted in the first round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. “I was at my house on Thursday night watching the opening broadcast and I thought it was fantastic,� Monahan said. “… Obviously, he’s someone that’s very thoughtful. And he was respecting Hawaiian culture and everything that makes this island and this area so great, and he did it in his own way and brought a lot of attention – not just to Rickie but to the tournament, to the area. … I think it’s representative of what makes our athletes so special. I don’t see any negative to it.� PGA TOUR/LPGA TOUR CO-EVENT. Monahan said he remains in discussion with LPGA and its commissioner, Mike Whan, about having an event that would include pros from both tours. He called the Sentry Tournament of Champions a “logical� option but not the only one. “That’s something that we’ll continue to talk about as we go down the road,� Monahan said. “And we’ll continue to talk to the LPGA about – if not here, how do we accomplish this at one of our tournaments. “That’s something that I’ve talked to Mike about at length and it’s something that we think is important, and I would like to think that we’ll get there at some point.� TIGER’S RETURN. Tiger Woods is scheduled to make his first start on TOUR in a year at the Farmers Insurance Open the week of Jan. 22. “We have been so fortunate that some of our young players and our players generally stepped up and carry the game forward,� Monahan said, “but to bring Tiger back into the mix and have the question that you’re asking out in front of everybody – I think it’s going to be fascinating to watch and we’re blessed that it’s happening.� CHARITY. The PGA TOUR and its tournaments across all tours announced Sunday that it generated more than $180 million for charitable causes in 2017, a record amount for a single year (click here for more details). That brings the all-time total to $2.65 billion. “It’s kind of weird – we talk about numbers, and numbers are numbers and it’s really hard to put your arms around it because they’re so big and they’re so significant,� Monahan said. “But it’s obviously the impact that our tournaments are having and our players are having by virtue of their participation in tournaments and support of the tournaments, which is the most powerful … “It’s a big part of who we are. We like to think that we do it better than anybody else – and we’re going to keep growing that number. That’s our scorecard.�

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