Fowler, Noren Take on 44th Players Championship

I’m headed down to Jacksonville for the 44th Players Championship, and similar to the Masters, there are only going to be two former Cowboys with a chance to win the golf tournament.

Rickie Fowler and Alex Noren will take on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, and for Fowler it will be an attempt at his second Players in three years after he won a thrilling playoff over Sergio Garcia and Kevin Kisner two years ago.

Here are the groups for Fowler and Noren over the first two days (all times ET).

• Rickie Fowler | Henrik Stenson | Jason Day — 8:16 a.m. on Thursday
• Alex Noren | Luke Donald | Adam Hadwin — 8:38 a.m. on Thursday

Both Fowler and Noren have been playing good golf of late as Fowler contended at the Masters and Noren got himself into the mix at the Wells Fargo Championship before being undone by a Sunday 77. Both are ranked in the top 15 in the world.

Not joining them are Charles Howell (WD), Kevin Tway (did not qualify) and Morgan Hoffmann (did not qualify) although all three are also having good seasons.

Howell is currently No. 22 in the FedEx Cup points race and finished T2 at the Farmers Insurance Open earlier in the season. Hoffmann is No. 69 in the FedEx Cup having finished T14 at the Zurich Classic (alongside Camilo Villegas) and T12 at the Wells Fargo.

Tway has thrilled of late after graduating to the PGA Tour from the Web.com Tour. He has three straight top-five finishes, has risen to No. 55 in the FedEx Cup and has cut his world ranking in half (from No. 433 to No. 211). Hopefully he can close out the second half of the season as well as he has started.

But it is Fowler of course who is the main event. Big Rick has only played once since the Masters, and he missed the cut at the team event in New Orleans when paired with Jason Day. Despite that (and missing the cut at The Players last year in his title defense), I think Fowler is primed to contend here once again.

He knows that it will take a better ball-striking performance than what he showed at Augusta and a much better outing than last year’s 72-71 missed cut at Sawgrass.

“Well it was definitely hard for me last year,” said Fowler of defending. “I didn’t have a tee time Saturday or Sunday, so that became impossible. But it’s just a hard tournament to win. You can come from behind. It’s hard to be out front with the finish; there’s so much that can happen.

“This is arguably the strongest field in golf, on a golf course that creates a great test, and you’re going to have to hit every kind of shot around this golf course throughout the week. That’s what’s great about it. It kind of tests all parts of your game.”

Hopefully Fowler will pass it once again.