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It is great to have the opportunity to study how Rickie Fowler is going about changing his swing with the idea in mind to become one of the top players on Tour. While he has had great results in the majors so far in 2014 (a 5th and two 2nds) the changes he has made have not improved his ball striking statistics, and he appears to be in a Jason Day type mode with high finishes in big events but few wins otherwise. He can putt the eyes out of it, however, and raising the level of his ball-striking is how he is going to make the jump to consistent winner. It’s pretty cool to see the significant changes he made to his backswing when he began working with Butch Harmon, which also changed the overall shape of his swing for the better, and it’s also cool to see how he modifies it later in the year by reverting back to some of his old habits while keeping some of the new. The best players will always wind up having their own version of whatever is being taught to them, another reason why teachers/coaches should not be glorified to quite the extent they are now when one of their students wins or plays well. Rickie is trying to be great, which is a laudable goal, but it remains to be seen whether or not he can take what Butch gives him and come up with a hybrid he can call his own that will be appreciably better than what he had. Only time will tell.
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