Rickie Fowler

Missed last year’s Open after falling outside the world’s top 150 from a high of fourth in 2016, but hauled himself back into the leading 50 just in time to earn a return to the course where he was joint second behind Rory McIlroy in 2014 and began this month with his first PGA Tour win for over four years, beating Collin Morikawa and Adam Hadwin in a play-off at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

His Hoylake near-miss was during a season that also saw him come fifth in The Masters, second to Martin Kaymer at the US Open and third at the PGA Championship.

Fowler’s biggest victory to date remains the 2015 Players Championship, where he played the last six holes in six under par and produced two more birdies to win the play-off against Sergio Garcia and Kevin Kisner. In 2018 he was a single stroke behind Patrick Reed back at Augusta National.

In his last four events of 2017, Fowler had two more second places and then a four-stroke victory at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, thanks to a closing 61.

At the recent US Open he equalled the major record with his opening 62 before finishing joint fifth.

On the DP World Tour he has lifted the 2015 AAM Scottish Open and 2016 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

He led the amateur world rankings for 36 weeks and won seven out of eight Walker Cup games. Since then, Fowler has collected four Ryder Cup and three Presidents Cup caps, most recently as a replacement for Brooks Koepka.