Rickie Fowler’s playoffs all but over after closing quintuple bogey
As the last man into the FedExCup Playoffs, Rickie Fowler needed at least a solo 11th in this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship for a chance to advance to the second postseason event, the BMW Championship. And for 17 holes on Saturday at TPC Southwind, Fowler was giving himself a shot, 3 under on the day and just a couple of strokes out of position at 7 under for the tournament.
Then the 18th hole happened.
Fowler carded a quintuple-bogey ‘9’ on the par-4 finishing hole to end up with a third-round, 2-over 72, which knocked him outside the top 50 at 2 under, well back of the finish he’d need Sunday to keep his season going.
Fowler failed to clear the lake as he tried to cut the left dogleg with his drive. After dropping some 120 yards up in the rough, Fowler had about 220 yards left to the hole with his third shot, but that found water, too. His fifth shot came up short of the green and he needed two more shots to get on the putting surface.
Full-field scores from FedEx St. Jude Championship
Finally, after not hitting the hole on his quadruple-bogey putt from 6 feet, Fowler tapped in to tie the worst single-hole score of his PGA Tour career.