Rickie Fowler, ‘the Natural’: ‘He was blessed with a gift’

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The headline labels him “The Natural,” and this story by D.J. Piehowski at PGATour.com takes readers back to his roots and their role in “how a Sunday at The Players Championship made Rickie Fowler the player he was destined to be,” the subhead says. “And on that perfect Sunday in Florida, he found it. Fowler had already become one of the faces of an entire sport, someone little kids dress like and look up to. But that afternoon unlocked everything else. ‘I wasn’t expecting any of this at all. What he’s done is amazing,’ [his mother] Lynn says. ‘But when I can calculate everything backwards now, I can see that it was in the plan. He was blessed with a gift.’”

It is a familiar lament, that Augusta National does not host an LPGA event. Kevin Van Valkenburg of ESPN has the latest wistful suggestion: “When I was chasing Ernie Els and Bryson DeChambeau and Spieth last week, I was struck by a thought: Wouldn't it be great if Augusta National offered, in the spirit of progress, to host a Solheim Cup there? At a time when the game of golf needs to find ways to grow, and especially increase female participation in the sport, can you imagine how much fun it would be to watch Stacy Lewis and Suzann Pettersen duel on the back nine, with Sunday roars echoing off the Georgia pines?”

Danny Willett’s victory in the Masters strengthened the argument that golf reigns over sports in the United Kingdom, James Corrigan of the Telegraph writes. “It is time England paused to think as well and realise that golf is its most successful sport. Indeed, with Rory McIlroy having won four majors, Jamie Donaldson hitting Europe’s winning putt in the last Ryder Cup and with Russell Knox winning Scotland its first WGC title last year, golf is the United Kingdom’s most successful sport.”

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