Recently, Rickie Fowler and Ian Poulter received 24% of anonymous votes from their peers on the PGA TOUR as the most overrated golfers in the sport. Poulter, 39, has two PGA Tour victories, the most recent coming in 2012, to go along with 12 Euro Tour wins. He has eight top-10 finishes in major championships and has earned more than $17.19 million in his career. Fowler, 26, has one lone Tour victory from the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship. Last year, he finished in the top-5 for each of the major championships, becoming only the third player in history to do so alongside Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.
Both were within a couple shots of the lead heading into the final round of the PLAYERS Championship. Poulter finished the tournament T30 at 4-under par, but Fowler would put together perhaps the best finish in PLAYERS Championship history. After playing his first 66 holes in 6-under par, Fowler would finish his last 10 holes in 8-under par, eventually winning a three-way playoff on the 4th playoff hole between himself, Sergio Garcia and Kevin Kisner, for his second PGA TOUR victory.
The leaderboard was packed all day with multiple players at 9-under and 10-under par. After being 1-over par for his round through 12 holes, Fowler went 6-under through his final six holes (birdie, par, birdie, eagle, birdie birdie) for a final round 67 and 12-under par for the tournament. His final stretch was reminiscent of his Sunday singles finish during the 2010 Ryder Cup where he birdied his last 4 holes to halve his match against Edoardo Molinari. In the three-hole aggregate playoff, he played holes 16 – 18 in par, birdie, par and tied with Kevin Kisner. The fourth playoff hole returned to hole 17 where Rickie would stick another tee shot to win the biggest tournament of his career. Fowler played the 17th hole three times on Sunday and birdied the hole each and every time!
You can bet there was some extra motivation coming into this week with the “overrated” poll – hopefully this win will be a springboard for Rickie for the rest of 2015 and we can see him win more tournaments, or maybe even a Major Championship!
Source: THE PLAYERS Championship
