LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- The shock over what he has watched over the past few weeks has, for the most part, gradually diminished for the patriarch of the Fowler family.
For the increasingly famous son in question, the awe wore off in exactly 18 holes.
Rickie Fowler, a 20-year-old seemingly armed with all the accoutrements of future stardom, walked off the final green of the first round at his first PGA Tour event last year at Hilton Head and cornered his father.
"He said, 'Dad, this is easy,'" Rod Fowler recalled with a laugh. "He said, "I know I can do this.'"
Brash and brassy, Fowler is quickly proving his first-blush reaction was hardly an understatement as he attempts this week to accomplish something only Tiger Woods has done over the past 14 years -- win a PGA Tour event right out of college.
Picking up where he left off at the previous tour event three weeks ago, where he lost in a playoff, the former Oklahoma State star is one stroke off the lead at the Children's Miracle Network Classic at Disney World after an opening 66 Thursday at the Palm Course.
Some storms are comparatively slow to build after first being forecast -- it took budding megastar Woods until his fifth professional start to win on the PGA Tour -- but Fowler has arrived with the fury of a tornado. Sure, folks knew he was dangerous, but this is getting ridiculous.
"We're living the dream, really," his father said.
The 47-year-old former pro motocross racer stole a look at a nearby TV, where his son's name topped the leaderboard -- again.
"That looks pretty cool," he said, laughing.
Cool and collected effectively describes his kid, who won the Ben Hogan college Player of the Year award as a freshman, an NCAA first. Rickie, whose shaggy locks and multicultural looks have made him easy to spot and readily marketable, is so nonplused by his fast start that it nearly sounds like arrogance.
Actually, it's more of a reasoned calm, a well-earned self-assurance. In his first two starts as a pro on the tour, he's finished T7 and T1, depending on how you care to characterize the playoff defeat two weeks ago outside Phoenix. Fowler even says his headline-grabbing stretch is nothing extraordinary, which was slightly reminiscent of Woods' infamous quote a decade ago about winning with something other than his "A game."
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| Rickie Fowler has earned more than a half-million dollars in two professional starts. (Getty Images) |
Steady? His worst round in three starts is a 69. He's poised to become the second player since Woods to boat-race the tour and earn enough money after leaving college that he can skip Qualifying School altogether.
As it stands, Fowler has earned $553,700 in the two starts, which has left him within $70,000 of David Duval at No. 125 in earnings. That dollar figure will almost surely change by the end of the Disney season finale, but finishing in the top 12 would easily secure his card for 2010 and avoid Q-school in December.
Only five players since 1980 have accomplished that feat after turning pro at midseason right out of college, including Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and Woods. Ryan Moore in 2005 was the last collegian to make enough cash with a frenetic fall finish to skip the Q-school rigors entirely.
Rod Fowler keeps waiting for his son, a relatively smallish 5-feet-9, to hit the wall. So far, Rickie's hurdling obstacles as easily as he used to jump moguls on his dirt bike as a kid. A younger kid, we mean.
"He's done it at every level," said Rod Fowler, who won the Baja 1000 in 1986. "From high school on, he hasn't let up. You keep thinking, 'When is it going to peak out?'"
His college coach, Mike McGraw, once tried to characterize the intangible components of Fowler's game that separated him from the rest and said, simply, "He has that 'it.'"
Indeed, whatever "it" is, Fowler was at the front of the mythical line when it was handed out, and he grabbed a huge helping with both hands. More than anything, he has an uncanny ability to get the ball in the hole, which is what the game's all about at its crux. His swing is a little loopy at the top, frighteningly quick, and clearly the product of a non-traditional track from most college hotshots. He was taught by a driving-range pro and is most certainly not a silver-spooner, unlike some of his current compatriots.
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Just like in high school when he shot a series of 62s as a junior, he still makes birdies in flurries. He birdied five of his last six holes Thursday, including a chip-in from 45 feet on the 18th, to move into the lead after the morning wave was completed.
Clearly, he's become the talk of the tour. It's hard not to root for the kid to continue torching scorecards on courses that he and his caddie -- a boyhood pal named Joe Skovron -- have never before seen.
"I hope he plays great," said Will MacKenzie, who was a shot back after an opening 67. "He's a cool little guy, and I mean I want all those young guys to just keep coming. You know, it's good for the game to have good young players, and there's a lot of good young players right now.
"So good for him, man. I hope he kills it. I mean, I hope he wins tournaments."
Like the rest of us, MacKenzie is acutely aware that there still are no players younger than Woods who seem remotely equipped to unseat him anytime soon. Everybody is on full-scan with an eye on the horizon. Fowler, another Southern Californian whose mother is of Asian descent, has that certain swagger and fearlessness.
"It ain't easy out here," MacKenzie said. "Nobody's going to do what Tiger's doing, but it's tough to get in there and you're like, who's going to win majors? You don't have those guys that are like, that perennial guy coming up guy. You're not sure.
"[Anthony Kim] maybe in five years is going to be one of those guys. Maybe this is one of the guys that's going to whip off a couple of majors."
A few minors would be a great start, and that's exactly what Fowler seems disposed to do -- continue tearing up the Fall Series. This week marks his eighth start on the PGA Tour, the first five as an amateur. He has earned $33,000 less this season than MacKenzie, in 21 fewer starts.
"You know, it has been a nice and fairly easy transition," said Fowler, who turned pro after the Walker Cup matches in September, where he went 4-0. "I played quite a few [pro] events as an amateur with Nationwide, PGA Tour events and with the two U.S. Opens. With amateur golf and college golf now we travel so much that, you know, it's nothing new.
"It's a little bit different that we're here week to week. I mean maybe the biggest difference is we're playing for money, but you know, I'm still out here playing to win, so my mentality hasn't changed with that."
To think that he easily might have gone a completely different direction. Given his father's former career, Fowler broke his foot and tore up a knee in an accident at age 15 and finally sold his dirt bike. A few months back, his dad learned that one of their family friends from the same hometown had been paralyzed from the chest down in a motorcycle mishap.
Rod Fowler pushed that fallen rider, Ernesto Fonseca, around in his wheelchair at Torrey Pines in mid-2008 as they watched Rickie play as an amateur in the U.S. Open. If the family didn't know it already, Rickie had made the right choice. At 19, he shot 70 in the opening round at Torrey and made the cut.
"Thank goodness he decided on golf," Rod said.
In a manner of speaking, Fowler plays golf like he rode that infernal bike: With the throttle cranked open and his hair flapping in the breeze.
"For the most part when you're out on the course, hit it hard as you can down the fairway, aim at the pin and swing at it again," he said. "So I've kind of kept that same thing going for a little bit longer than most."
