PEBBLE BEACH — Rickie Fowler’s primary goal for 2026 is rather simple, summed up in two words. “Feel better.”
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He would like to play better, too, but it’s hard to have one without the other, and Fowler just didn’t feel good throughout last season as he dealt with a stubborn left shoulder injury. And by stubborn, we mean chronic—something, he said, that has been an issue since high school. Somehow, the six-time PGA Tour winner managed to play well enough to finish among the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings, ensuring a spot in all of this year’s signature events and allowing him to take an extended sabbatical in the fall to heal.
“I definitely earned the time off with sneaking inside that top 50, so that was a nice bonus,” Fowler said Friday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. “That was what I was trying to work towards to earn that time off and then be able to get into a position where I could get the body in a better spot and go play this year.”
Incredibly, Fowler had only three top-10 finishes last year, but two of those were in the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
He obviously is feeling better these days, and after a second-round eight-under 64 at Spyglass Hill, the California native he has a chance to win a tournament that hasn’t been particularly kind to him. At 14-under 130, Fowler is tied for third, one stroke behind Akshay Bhatia and Ryo Hisatsune. He has never finished in the top 10 in this event.
At least Fowler can claim to have enjoyed a cool celebrity moment—even though it wasn’t during this tournament.
“Maybe one of my first memories, I caddied for [Mark] Wahlberg in the U.S. Open Challenge prior to the 2010 U.S. Open,” he recalled of the event sponsored by Golf Digest on the weekend prior to the championship. “I think we were—I say ‘we’ because I was caddying—but I think Mark was the only one to break 100 [he shot 97], so got that under my belt.”
Fowler, 37, is making his third start this year and has a pair of T-18 finishes under his belt. His swing is dialed in—he led the field in strokes gained/approach at 4.782 on Friday—and overall, he is comfortable with his game. He converted nine birdies against just one bogey at Spyglass on another relatively calm day on the Monterey Peninsula.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a specific part of the game that has either held me back or pushed me forward. Everything’s been fairly solid,” he said. “I will say I’ve done a good job, you know, sometimes on the greens especially over at Pebble can get a little bouncy on the Poa. Spy typically rolls quite a bit better. I’ve done a good job of just committing and hitting a lot of good putts.
“Yeah, especially when we get weather like this after we got through some of the rain, this is just a fun part of the world to be in.”
And especially when you’re feeling better.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
