Rickie Fowler sports sunglasses at Memorial and not just to be stylish

DUBLIN, Ohio – Rickie Fowler has always been among golf’s most stylish players, but his look on Thursday at the Memorial Tournament was more than a fashion statement.

Fowler wore a pair of dark wraparound sunglasses at Muirfield Village despite a low overcast and two separate weather delays, but the glasses weren’t for the glare.

“I always struggled with seeing more than say 150 yards and little things far away,” Fowler said. “It’s not enough to where like I really wanted to try going to Lasik [eye surgery] or anything like that.”

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Fowler also didn’t like to wear sunglasses while he played because they had a tendency to move during his swing and block his view of the golf ball.

“Now that things have been cleaned up and I swing a little bit more just within myself, that gave me the opportunity in just standard sunglasses without prescription,” Fowler said. “I said, shoot, why don’t we try prescription. So now, yeah, I can actually see the ball land.”

The early reviews of Fowler’s new look were encouraging with the 32-year-old posting a bogey-free 69 for an early share of seventh place at the weather-delayed event.