Rickie Fowler Puts Himself In Contention For ‘Backdoor Medal’ With 64 in Round 3

Rickie Fowler had a tough first two days at the Olympics. He shot 75 in Round 1 and 71 in Round 2. He joked on Friday that maybe he would lower his score by four each day. Then he did seven better on Saturday by shooting a 64 to get to 3 under for the week.

Rickie Fowler's 29 on the front nine today is the 1st sub-30 score on any nine this week. #Rio2016

— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGC) August 13, 2016

Fowler went out in 29 on the front nine on Saturday after holing out for eagle at No. 9. He came home in 35 to get to T14 on the week, just six shots out of third place. Third place matters this week because, well, it’s the Olympics and you get a medal for third place (unlike a regular PGA Tour event).

Rickie Fowler 9th hole eagle chip #Golf #Rio2016 pic.twitter.com/HmbbfuuolF

— Santeri Majaniemi (@Santerji) August 13, 2016

“It definitely gave me a chance going into tomorrow to potentially get myself on the podium,” Fowler told Golf Channel. “You look at the scores and where you might get rewarded for a good round tomorrow. I really gave myself a good chance to backdoor a medal.”

Sunday is going to be fascinating because there is no money to win or lose. The only thing that matters is going as low as possible to get into that top three. So guys are going to be going for every par 5, running putts 10 feet past the hole — it’s going to be insane and awesome.

Fowler, who was visited by Matthew McConaughey on Friday, has no chance to catch the top two of Justin Rose (-12) and Henrik Stenson (-11), but he only has 10 players between him and the current third-place golfer Marcus Fraser (-9). Six shots is not that many to make up when you have names like Cheng Tsung Pan, Mikko Ilonen and Gregory Bourdy ahead of you.

.@RickieFowler #USA – 64 today is his lowest score worldwide in 2016

— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGC) August 13, 2016

It’s been a weird week for Big Rick. He committed to the Wyndham Championship next week on Friday to try and rack up some Ryder Cup points (he’s not on the team as an automatic qualifier right now). This came after shooting that egregious 75 on Thursday. Then he went crazy low on Saturday and put a bit of a charge into a tournament that certainly needs a charge. He’s sort of been all over the place (that’s not exclusive to the golf course either!)

So I’ll be rooting for him (yeah, I root) on Sunday alongside the rest of the American squad to at least bring home one medal back to the motherland (the Olympics has me fist pumping for Bubba!) Another round like he shot on Saturday should probably get the job done. Or maybe he’ll go four lower than that.