Is Patrick Reed Already Lobbying For Rickie Fowler?

The last time we saw Rickie Fowler, he was imploding over the last four holes at Bethpage Black, falling apart, crumbling, going down like the Hindenburg.

Bethpage Black beat Rickie into submission, even Barclays winner Patrick Reed wasn’t immune from the pressure.

When was the last time you saw a guy bogey two of the final three holes and win a PGA Tour playoff event?

Afterward, Fowler shrugged it off:

“It was just a little off here and there. You had to be playing out of the fairway, so yeah, very disappointed.”

What was disappointing is that Fowler didn’t take control of his Ryder Cup destiny. All he had to do was garner a top three finish and he would have joined the Automatic Eight and sewed up his ticket for Minnesota.

But perhaps it didn’t matter.

As previously reported, Captain Davis Love III has turned the asylum over to the inmates and the players will be selecting the final four members of team USA to compete against those dastardly Euros in Minnesota at the end of this month.

If it’s a players choice, then it is nearly impossible to imagine that Fowler won’t be part of the team.

After all, Rickie Fowler is the cool kid, the most popular guy in the high school hallways, everyone wants to sit at his table in the lunch room, everyone wants to go hang out where Rickie’s hanging out. He is the Sara Lee of the PGA Tour and we all know that “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”

Is it also possible that Reed and others may already be in the “pick Rickie mode”?

After the Barclays, Fowler gave up this tidbit about his interaction with Reed on the 72nd hole.

“He just told me, he was like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go get my work done’ and he was like, ‘I’ll see you in Minnesota.”

Sounds like one solid vote for Fowler already.

What Fowler really needs to do is give us more solid golf when play begins Friday at the Deutsche Bank.

Fowler is the defending champion here and he could do something unprecedented in the PGA Tour playoffs. You see, no player has successfully defended a playoff title in the history of the FedEx Cup.  The Deutsche Bank, 2015, was Fowler’s last PGA Tour win.  If you tell Rickie he hasn’t won this year, he’ll remind you that he did get one over on the Euros in Abu Dhabi this past January.

Does Fowler need to win?

No.

Rickie is far too popular. He even has Sir Nick Faldo’s vote, even though Faldo doesn’t get a vote.

“He’s useful,” said Faldo last Sunday when questioned why Fowler would be his pick.

Useful is one thing, making critical putts is another.

That’s basically what has derailed the U.S. Ryder Cup team in recent history.

You know Fowler’s got Jordan Spieth’s vote, after all, they are vacation buddies.

The only problem is that the Ryder Cup is not a vacation.

So we will leave you with this:

The Automatic Eight for the U.S. should recall the scene from the movie:  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

When it came time to pick which cup was the actual Holy Grail, the 700-year-old knight who guarded the Grail gave his solemn advice:

“Choose wisely!”