Nick Faldo walks back his ‘commercials’ dig at Rickie Fowler
Nick Faldo, left, and Rickie Fowler during the 2015 Open Championship.
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Nick Faldo roasted Rickie Fowler.
Two days later, he tried to put out the flames.
In a video posted to his Twitter feed on Thursday, the six-time major winner and current CBS analyst said “in the future, I’ll restrain from digging in a little too deep” after a “commercials” dig at Rickie Fowler on Tuesday.
“I wish Rickie well,” Faldo said. “I want him to play great, get out there, play to the top of the leaderboard, and that will all be fantastic for all of us.”
On Tuesday, before this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, Fowler said his recent slump that has put him 65th in the world rankings and in danger of missing the Masters for the first time since 2010 is “very frustrating,” and Golf Digest reporter Brian Wacker tweeted out a story with those comments. Faldo then quote-tweeted that tweet and wrote: “Good news is if he misses the Masters he can shoot another six commercials that week!”
Faldo said the comment “was probably born out a little bit out of jealousy.” He said he has just one commercial.
“I would love to have a few more commercials,” he said.
Faldo also said he had told Fowler that a comment was coming.
“Like everybody, we want him to find his game as soon as possible,” Faldo said. “So five years ago now, he was voted by the players as the most overrated player on Tour. It motivated him to go and win the Players literally the next week. So a couple years later when things were gone quiet, I said to Rickie, hey, I need to give you a bit of needle, mate, to motivate you. And he said to me, bring it on.
“OK, it’s years later, so hopefully he still remembers that.”
During Thursday’s first round of the Arnold Palmer, Fowler shot a four-over 76 and is 10 shots behind leaders Rory McIlroy and Corey Conners. He has not won since the 2019 Waste Management Open and has not finished in the top 10 since last year’s Tournament of Champions, but he said Tuesday he’s “grinding through it.”
“It’s golf,” Fowler said. “Everyone that’s played really at all, especially at some sort of a high level completely understands that golf is up-and-down. … Unfortunately, this one’s been a little longer than I would like it to have been.”
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