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Rickie Fowler Just Regained a Vital Position He Hasn’t Held in Two Years

Fowler cracked the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings, a standing that comes with significant benefits.

Gabrielle Herzig

Rickie Fowler Just Regained a Vital Position He Hasn’t Held in Two Years
Rickie Fowler Just Regained a Vital Position He Hasn’t Held in Two Years /

With his T14 finish at the Wells Fargo Championship, Rickie Fowler just got himself back into a position that he hasn’t held in more than two years. 

Fowler, who shot a tournament total of 8 under at Quail Hollow, just cracked the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings. According to rankings expert “Nosferatu” on Twitter, Fowler hasn’t broken through into that cohort of players in two years and five months. 

The 34-year-old and five-time PGA Tour winner stands exactly at No. 50 in the world, a position that will have significant benefits going forward throughout the 2023 season. (He is also ranked No. 43 in the SIWGR.)

If Fowler remains in the top 60 in the OWGR two weeks before the start of the U.S. Open, he’ll be eligible to tee it up at Los Angeles Country Club on June 15. For the British Open, Fowler will be eligible if he remains in the top 50 in the OWGR by Week 21 of 2023, which is the week of May 22. The Open will be played from July 20-23. 

The Oklahoma State product will be in the PGA Championship, as he is No. 34 on the PGA Championship points list. The top 70 players on that list will be eligible to tee it up at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester on May 18. 

Fowler did not qualify for this year’s Masters, and he hasn’t been eligible to compete at Augusta National since 2020.

In September 2022, Fowler reached the worst world rank of his professional career—he sank to No. 185. Since that point, Fowler has made a steady climb up the rankings. In late January, he cracked the top 100 for the first time in over a year with a T11 finish at the Farmers Insurance Open.

In eight of his last nine starts, Fowler has finished inside the top 20. At the Zozo Championship in October, he finished T2, one shot behind the champion Keegan Bradley. 

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Gabrielle Herzig
GABRIELLE HERZIG

Gabrielle Herzig is a Breaking and Trending News writer for Sports Illustrated Golf. Previously, she worked as a Golf Digest Contributing Editor, an NBC Sports Digital Editorial Intern, and a Production Runner for FOX Sports at the site of the 2018 U.S. Open. Gabrielle graduated as a Politics Major from Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she was a four-year member and senior-year captain of the Pomona-Pitzer women’s golf team. In her junior year, Gabrielle studied abroad in Scotland for three months, where she explored the Home of Golf by joining the Edinburgh University Golf Club.

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