Rickie Fowler Will Be Lone American Golfer at Opening Ceremonies in Rio

The Olympics are here. They start on Friday, and Rickie Fowler will be the only golfer of the four Americans to attend the opening ceremonies in Rio. Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed and Matt Kuchar are all playing the Travelers Championship this week in Connecticut and will make their way down next week for the competition (even if they don’t know exactly what the competition is).

“I always wanted to have that opportunity, especially with the way the schedule worked,” Fowler told Golf Digest recently. “So now I’ll be the only golfer, but it will be pretty cool. Looking forward to not only the opening ceremonies but getting to see some of the other athletes that are down there and seeing greatness happen in front of me.”

Fowler will go to Rio as the second-highest ranked American and the third-highest ranked player in the field (behind Henrik Stenson and Watson), but his summer has been disappointing. He only has two top 10s since March and missed the cut at the first two major championships.

Because of that he’s currently on the outside looking in at an automatic Ryder Cup spot. He’ll almost certainly be on the team no matter what, but nobody would have thought Fowler (who is on the Ryder Cup task force) would need a captain’s pick.

“Just golf’s hard,” Fowler told the AP. “If it was easy, then everyone would be out here playing and I wouldn’t have a job. So it’s just kind of fighting through it and continuing to put in the work, and it will turn back around here soon.”

An Olympic gold medal would not salvage a middling season for Fowler, but it would be pretty cool to be the only golfer in over 100 years to take home a medal. What Fowler really needs is a streaky August and September in the FedEx Cup Playoffs as his squad barrels towards Hazeltine and the Ryder Cup. The Olympics could be just the start.