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Players Championship 2018: Rickie Fowler busts out binoculars to identify ball in tree, ends up missing cut because of lost ball

May 11, 2018

Rickie Fowler is a nonchalant, carefree soul. Except when it comes to the trees at TPC Sawgrass. Given the man's past with the wooded beasts, don't be surprised if he's calling for wholesale timber removal before next year's Players Championship.

A year after getting his Titleist lodged in a limb on the Stadium Course's 18th hole, Fowler again found himself in timber trouble on Friday during the Players' second round.

On the sixth hole (his 15th), Fowler soared his tee shot on the 374-yard par four towards the right and it didn't come down. Literally, as his ball got caught in the shrub. Worse, even with the help of binoculars, Fowler was unable to identify his ball, meaning he had to travel back to the tee box to play his third.

Fowler, who was five under for the day and three under for the event, took a double on the sixth, and was unable to shake the bad break. He put his next tee shot into the water at the seventh, leading to another double, and failed to birdie the par-5 ninth. The final result was an over-over total, meaning Fowler would not make the weekend. On the bright side, the image of Rickie peering through binoculars seems very GIF-able, one you'll see for the next decade anytime Fowler is making a run at the leaders, so the day was not a total loss.