Golf’s great rivalries sometimes come in threesomes.
That is the case this season, and possibly into the future, with Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland, Jordan Spieth and Jason Day of Australia.
However, Rickie Fowler decided he didn’t want to be left out, so he won the Deutsche Bank Championship in the second week of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
“The three guys that they talk about, Jason, Rory and Jordan, they’ve clearly played the best out of anyone over the past few months to couple of years,” said Fowler, whose name is being mentioned as a contender with the other three this week heading into the BMW Championship, the third of four events in the playoffs.
“So I’m trying to be a small fourth thrown in there. But there’s a lot of other really good young players playing well right now, as well.”
None better than these four, however, and just in time for the game of golf, with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson headed downhill.
Spieth, 21, remains the Player of the Year favorite after his victories in the Masters and the U.S. Open, plus wins in the Valspar Championship and the John Deere Classic.
The Texan traded the No. 1 spot in the World Golf Rankings with McIlroy the last few weeks and is No. 2 in the FedEx Cup standings despite missing the cut in The Barclays and the Deutsche Bank Championship.
“I believe that Jason is No. 1 right now,” Spieth said recently. “He’s playing the best of anybody right now.”
When McIlroy was out for six weeks because of an ankle injury, Day made his move by winning three times in four tournaments, claiming titles in the RBC Canadian Open, the PGA Championship and The Barclays, to go with the one he took earlier this year in the Farmers Insurance Open.
The 27-year-old Aussie leads the FedEx Cup standings heading into the final two events and is No. 3 in the World Golf Rankings.
Spieth isn’t alone in saying Day is the best player in the world right now, but he will get an argument from Day himself.
“I can’t say that I am because it just wouldn’t feel right, because you can’t look at the world rankings and go, yeah, I’m the best player in the world but I’m ranked third in the world right now,” said Day, who could have taken the top spot with a victory in the Deutsche Bank but tied for 12th.
“I’ve just got keep playing well and hopefully get my name up there at the top of the world rankings.”
Fowler, 26, obviously was miffed earlier this year when he came out on top in a Sports Illustrated poll of PGA Tour players rating the most overrated golfers on the circuit.
However, he mostly kept his mouth shut and let his clubs do the talking.
Fowler claimed the biggest victory of his career in the Players Championship, then added titles in the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open and the Deutsche Bank.
By winning the second event of the playoffs, he climbed to No. 3 in the FedEx Cup rankings and No. 5 in the World Golf Rankings.
“I want to be the best player in the world at some point,” said Fowler after winning at TPC Boston, and he couldn’t help but get in a little dig at the voters in that poll.
“But, yes, being called overrated, I won three times (since), so thanks for the poll, I guess.”
Even though Fowler stepped up to the next level, it is not as if he had no previous track record. He finished in the top five of all four majors last year, and in his two earlier victories, in the 2011 Kolon Korea Open and the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship, he outplayed runner-up McIlroy.
Last year, it appeared McIlroy was going to make it a one-man show when he captured the Open Championship, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship in consecutive outings.
That Tiger-like run helped him hold the No. 1 ranking for 93 weeks, until Spieth overtook him for the first time last month, even though the Irishman won the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, the WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship and the Wells Fargo Championship (by seven strokes) this year.
While McIlroy, 26, lost the No. l spot to Spieth last week and regained it again on Monday this week, he is only 17th in the FedEx Cup Rankings thanks at least in part to his injury. He needs a big performance this week in the BMW, which he won in 2012.
“If you went on the one-year system in terms of the world rankings, you’ve got to say Jordan (is No. 1),” McIlroy said at TPC Boston. “And then Jason, I would say.”
Golf had its Great Triumvirate, the British threesome of Harry Vardon, James Braid and John Henry Taylor, around the turn of the 20th century, and its Big Three of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player of South Africa some 60 years later.
Although they didn’t have their own nickname, the threesome of Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead were formidable in the middle of the last century, and a book about them called “American Triumvirate” was written a few years ago.
The current Fabulous Foursome hasn’t done anything close to those threesomes yet, but these guys have time, and talent, on their side.
–Story courtesy of The Sports Xchange, TSX Golf Editor Tom LaMarre
