Uihlein, Otaegui share the lead in France

DETROIT – Rickie Fowler was going the wrong direction, but he rallied with three back-nine birdies and shot a 1-under 71 to make the cut at the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club. It was his first made cut since the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard in March “Knew I needed to jump on the horse and get things going,” said Fowler, who is working on swing changes and came into this week 108th in the FedExCup and 31st in the world. “Made a few better swings on the back nine.” RELATED: Leaderboard | Wolff: ‘Maybe I need to impress the old greats’ Fowler, a Rocket Mortgage and Quicken Loans ambassador, had missed the weekend rounds in his previous two Return to Golf starts, at the Charles Schwab Challenge and RBC Heritage. He had struggled with blisters at the RBC, where he missed the cut by only a shot. “It’s nice to finally have a Saturday tee time,” he said. “I’m kind of sick and tired of taking weekends off, so I really wasn’t looking forward to that. Needed a little back nine action. We got it done.” Normally one of the best putters in the game, he looked into lackluster recent results and realized he was standing too close to the ball, which was leading to chaos in the stroke. Having adjusted, he saw some improvement in a solid first round at the Rocket Mortgage. He narrowly lost strokes to the field on the greens in round two. “Everything’s been getting better and better,” Fowler said. “Yesterday (a 5-under 67) could have been a lot better than it was, but happy with the progress we’re making. Like I said, Saturday tee time’s a good thing. It’s a pretty bunched up leaderboard. Go put together a good one tomorrow morning and we’re right back in it.”

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Contentment, and one of the game’s greatest coaches, helped Maverick McNealy join his peers on the PGA TOUR after two trying seasons. McNealy turned pro in 2017 after compiling one of the most impressive amateur resumes of the decade. He reached No. 1 in the world amateur ranking and represented the United States on two Walker Cup teams. He won both the Hogan and Haskins awards and shares Stanford’s school wins record with Tiger Woods and Patrick Rodgers. McNealy is still just 23 years old. Even in today’s youth-obsessed game, that’s considered ahead of the curve. This was a unique season on the PGA TOUR, though. Two of his teammates from the 2017 Walker Cup – Cameron Champ and Collin Morikawa – won tournaments. Matthew Wolff did, as well, just weeks after winning the NCAA Championship. McNealy admits that it was tough to not make comparisons and wonder why he didn’t have the same quick success. He knew others certainly were. “I found two gray hairs,� McNealy, who turns 24 in November, joked recently. That wasn’t a remark on his age, however. Struggles with his driver led to a stressful first season on the Korn Ferry Tour. McNealy saw progress after taking his first lesson from Butch Harmon earlier this year. There were changes to McNealy’s mental game, as well. He’s accepted the difference between contentment and complacency. He used to fear the former would lead to the latter. McNealy is playing his third event as a PGA TOUR member at this week’s Safeway Open, not far from his hometown and alma mater. We’ll let him describe his journey to the PGA TOUR in his own words (Note: conversation condensed for space and clarity). PGATOUR.COM: You struggled towards the end of your first season. How bad did it get? Maverick McNealy: “Last year, at the end of the season, I was in a really bad place. I had a really hard time with my ball-striking. I was really stuck underneath and had this really bad right block. It became mental. “There was a week there where I came home to Vegas and I lost two dozen golf balls in a week. I just couldn’t hit a fairway. When it got to Columbus (for the opening event of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals), I told my caddie, ‘I don’t know if I can play. I don’t know if I should keep going.’ He told me, ‘Just get your butt on an airplane.’ It was a heroic effort to make the cut in Columbus. I missed the rest of the cuts in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, but that was kind of the turning point.� PGATOUR.COM: What did you learn from those struggles? McNealy: “I learned that, to be successful in this game, there are going to be highs and lows. You have to be able to get through the lows and there has to be a purpose for the struggle. “There are plenty of bad reasons to play professional golf, and I needed a really good one. I came to two reasons why. One, I think golf tests you in a lot of ways and makes you become a lot better. Golf amplifies all these emotions you feel, so you have to be better. This process of struggling and having to do things better ended up being why I love playing professional golf because it makes you have to improve. I love the negative side of it more now. “The second reason was I like to make a difference and make an impact and do good, and that’s also a driving reason for why I’m playing golf. I started Birdies for Education this year because, in high school, I did my volunteer hours with Curriki. It’s a non-profit for K-12 educational materials, trying to lower the cost of education and make high-quality education available to everybody. We ended up raising $385,000 for Curriki this year.� PGATOUR.COM: Was it difficult to not compare yourself to some of the young players who had quick success on the PGA TOUR in 2019? McNealy: “Definitely. The thing that helped me process all that was being OK with where I am. It’s not complacency. It’s completely different. I have to be content with where I am. That does not affect my drive to improve and get to the next level in any way.  “Exceptionalism is an impossible standard to hold yourself to. It’s something to strive for, but by definition it’s an exception. Nowadays we are so obsessed with everything that is an anomaly. With social media and news and everything, we hear about the farthest ends of the bell curve. That’s the hardest thing to compare yourself to. I just said, ‘I am where my feet are. I am where I am, I’m happy with where I am, and I’m going to try as hard as I possibly can to get better and improve.’� PGATOUR.COM: Was last year stressful? McNealy: “One hundred percent. Through my senior year of college and the first year-and-a-half as a pro, I didn’t deal with expectations, self-imposed or external, very well. I was living in the world of have-to instead of want-to.� PGATOUR.COM: When did that change? McNealy: “It was the middle of this year. My whole life, I’ve felt pressure to be exceptional. I’ve had so many amazing opportunities and such great advantages that I have to do something with them. If I’m in school, I have to get As. If I’m in the business world, I have to be a world-beater. If I’m in golf, I have to do something special. I said to myself, ‘I’m 23 years old and in my second season on the Korn Ferry Tour and in the worst case I’ll be in my third season next year. That’s pretty good.’� PGATOUR.COM: You’re very introspective. What are some ways you analyze your game? McNealy: “I write down the details of every shot I hit in my pin sheet. I can go back to any pin sheet – which I save and scan and have them all stored – and I’ll be able to remember every shot I’ve hit at every golf course. “And I write down an overview of how the day went. How my warm-up was, how I was feeling, how the round went, what I did well, what I struggled with, any feels I was thinking of, anything that helped me play a certain shot, anything about the golf course that I found noteworthy and what I worked on after the round. I have that all logged for every tournament. I like to answer the question, ‘Why?’� PGATOUR.COM: Your girlfriend, LPGA player Danielle Kang, helped you get connected with Butch Harmon. How did that come about? McNealy: “Danielle told me, ‘By the way, Butch mentioned that if you ever wanted to come in and see him, he’d take a look.’ I said, ‘Oh, really? He would?’ I went and saw him and three golf balls in he said he knew what I was doing. “Honored and humbled are two very overused words, but honestly I am that I get to work with him. It’s an incredible opportunity to learn from one of, if not the greatest, golf minds of the last 50 years. It’s pretty cool. I’m just going to try to learn as much as I can from him and be a sponge and work really, really hard.  PGATOUR.COM: What did Butch recognize in your swing? McNealy: “Butch makes everything really, really simple. He helped me to de-clutter. I was stuck between feels. I had a different feel every day. Basically, I was backing up. The upper-body was moving back and the club was moving forward. That brought in a two-way miss. I’d miss it left because I was afraid of blocking it right. “He said three things: On the backswing, load right. Go left on the downswing, and stand a bit taller with the driver. Three days in, I said, ‘Wow, this is the first time I’ve worked on the same thing for three days and it’s gotten better all three days and it’s felt better every single day.�

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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Don’t tell Rickie Fowler and Jon Rahm the fight for a Green Jacket is a two-horse race. While Patrick Reed (-14) and Rory McIlroy (-11) are certainly in command of the tournament, Fowler (-9) and Rahm (-8) are not about to wave the white flag just yet. As we have seen many times at Augusta National – anything can happen on Sunday at the Masters. Ask Greg Norman. Ask Jordan Spieth. No lead is safe. Norman led by six in 1996 and lost by five. Spieth hit the par-3 12th hole still in control of a second win in 2016 and dumped two balls into Rae’s creek. Anything can happen. And so while the two rivals in the final group can take all the attention – those behind can go under the proverbial radar and try to make their Sunday charge. “I can’t control anyone else, other than putting birdies up on the board,â€� Fowler said. “We’re definitely in the golf tournament. I’m going to need to play the front nine well tomorrow and put myself really in the mix for when this golf tournament starts, which is the final nine holes. “They are fierce competitors, and we’ll see, maybe we can put a few numbers up there and sneak up on them.â€� The record for biggest comeback belongs to Jack Burke (1956) and Gary Player (1978) – they came from eight back to win. More recently, Nick Faldo was six back of Norman in 1996, and Danny Willett was five shots back with six holes to play in 2016 against Spieth. “The big thing is I’ll need to make some key putts, whether they are for birdie or pars, not to fall further behind, and to really put ourselves in a position to go win this tournament,â€� the 2015 PLAYERS champion added. “We’re ready to do that. Tomorrow’s a chance for us go do something pretty cool.â€� Fowler has recent history of getting it done from behind. While an 18-man unofficial event like the Hero World Challenge might not be a major, it was still against some of the best players on the planet last December. He started seven shots back. And he won by four. When he won at TPC Sawgrass in 2015, he started Sunday three back and shot 6 under over the last six holes to push into a playoff he would eventually win. Fowler says he will need to make little or no mistakes to replicate those famous wins. Saturday was a great test case, as he posted a scintillating 7-under 65 without a bogey. He will also draw on the experience of a year ago, when he started just one back of the leaders but shot 76 to fade to 11th. “Last year I may have gotten maybe too defensive or too aggressive and you learn from that and move on,â€� he said. “It wasn’t the finish that I wanted last year; it would have been nice to take advantage of the position we were in, making the turn and only being a few back, but we didn’t. “But I’m definitely playing this golf course the best I have, ever, as far as how comfortable I am on each and every hole, playing all the holes well. Definitely I’m hitting a lot more greens than I’ve ever hit here, and probably driving it the best I have here. “So looking forward to keeping that going. Fairways and greens will be big tomorrow. Just keep me on the putting surface and hopefully in the right spot, and we’ll go make some putts.â€� Rahm matched Fowlers bogey-free 65 and figures he might as well try to do the same Sunday. The Spaniard feels he has nothing to lose. Always an aggressive player, Rahm will try to get hot early and place the seeds of doubt in those behind him. “If you can get a really good start on that front nine and post a good score again, that back nine can be extremely long for the leaders,â€� Rahm said. “We know what can happen on that back nine on Sunday. It’s happened many times where a big lead disappears or even get cut down. Hopefully I’m one of those who plays good tomorrow and has a chance.â€� Henrik Stenson (-7), Tommy Fleetwood (-6), Bubba Watson (-6) and Marc Leishman (-6) are the only other players within the record eight shot margin.

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