REED TAKES BARCLAYS ON FOWLER FOUL-UP
HOLE AFTER hole, the howls for Rickie Fowler livened up Bethpage Black. Sunburnt gamblers and Sunday merrymakers hailed Fowler on his early walk through the front nine, telling the American they would fly with him to Minnesota for the Ryder Cup or pick up the tab at a 19th Hole to celebrate locally later on.
He drank it all in with a businessman’s mien beneath a flat-brimmed hat, dipping his score down to 10-under and playing above the din in his Day-Glo orange. The Barclays crystal and an automatic berth on the Ryder Cup team seemed to be within reach as he tapped in for pars. Still, Patrick Reed, the Texan with stars and stripes stitched into his black spikes, remained on the heels of his white high-tops as his pairing partner. Their fates seemed intertwined to a degree. It was not evident then how divergent three days could be.
Truth is, Fowler never saw the fall. He set a pace, kept it for a while and watched the shots spray the course. The chants eventually faded, just as his form did. In the void, he was left to consider his choke on a championship Sunday. His loss in the opening round of the FedEx Cup playoffs appeared to leave him perplexed.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just made a couple bad swings at the wrong time.”
Fowler’s turn to the back nine was one for the worse. Bogey-free the last two rounds, his swing went wild on the back nine. The consistency that kept him in contention and elevated him into the lead left him. First it was at No. 11. He bogeyed that, but one lost stroke seemed a blip. It was his first bogey since a “serious lip out,” as he referred to it, on No. 9 during the opening round Thursday. To rebound on Sunday, he steadied with three pars, but trouble trailed him, bogeying No. 15 and double bogeying No. 16. He approached his caddie by the crossover path to No. 17. “So bad,” Fowler said, shaking his head. He breathed life into his game with a birdie on No. 17, but changes were irrevocable now. Once accepting of the rowdy crowd’s continued cheers, he took exception to loudness on the tee at No. 18. He noted that he didn’t make the swing that he should have up there on the three-tier tee. The final blows were no better, ending with a clank off the leaderboard that led to a drop. He went out with a thud in the twilight, finishing tied for seventh with two others by shooting 3-over on the round and 6-under overall. A silver lining was his move up the Ryder Cup standings from No. 12 to No. 11, but his focus remained fixed on what could have been won.
“Disappointing finish,” he said. “I mean, it will hurt, but it’s only going to make it better for next week. I’ll be in a good spot.” He embraced Reed as a champion on the green before signing his card. Reed relayed word of further forward thinking by Fowler.
“He just told me, ‘Hey,’ he goes, ‘I’m going to go get my work done,’ and he was like, ‘I’ll see you in Minnesota,’” Reed said. “I said, ‘I know you will be.’”
Fowler departed Bethpage on the Ryder Cup bubble with no one to blame for his sudden uncertainty but himself. The trophy and the points to automatically put him on the Ryder Cup were there, but now he heads home to work on his swing and wonder what went wrong when so much had gone right, while Davis Love III ponders the makeup of his team that will take on Athe Europeans in Minnesota. ll day, Fowler heard about the Ryder Cup. Fans pressed up against split-rail fences and endured the dust kicked up by Fowler and Reed as they rolled up and down the state park’s hills only to watch Fowler fall back in the end and Reed emerge as the victor in red and black. Compatriots on the Olympics team in Brazil, they both maintained that Minnesota was now in sights.
Fowler wants to forge ahead. He will have to fix what broke at Bethpage first.