Rickie Fowler Saved By Butch (Again)

Rickie Fowler Saved By Butch (Again)

Ricky Fowler has one of the most fascinating swing evolutions of the modern era. Over his career, he’s had three completely different golf swings. Each change driven by performance demands, physical strain, or an attempt to simplify motion that at times was both electric and exhausting. His swing changes either turned him into a top five in every major contender or sent him outside the top 150 in the world. And real quick, if you enjoy deep cause and effect breakdowns, method busting, and honest teaching with no payw walls or sponsors, I upload four or five of these a week on whoever you want me to cover. So, if this helps you learn the swing differently, consider subscribing while we go through Ricky’s full evolution. If you’ve been following the channel for a while, you might remember the deep dive I did on Ricky Fowler’s golf swing a few years back. The link is in the top comment down below where I broke down the full cause and effect chain of that unique shallow rerouted motion he was famous for. If you haven’t seen it, I would check that out next if you’re really interested in his cause and effect. But today’s video is not about Ricky’s old swing. It’s about his swing changes, why they happened, whether they helped or hurt his performance, and what we can learn from them. Ricky Fowler essentially has three distinct versions of his golf swing. The first was the young Ricky pattern. Hands low, takeaway inside with the club head outside the hands. The face shut early and a back swing that got long across the line and closed at the top. Then came the famous reroute with his hands dropping deep behind him, the shaft laying down dramatically and the club attacking from way under the plane. When he timed it, he was electric. When he didn’t, he had to say shots with rotation and hand speed. That pattern also created lower back stress which he openly mentioned early in his career. And the thing about swings like this is they work beautifully until they don’t. When the timing window shrinks, the misses multiplied quickly. And that’s exactly where Ricky found himself by the end of 2013. After that disappointing 2013 season, Ricky began working with Butch Harmon in December of that year. And this was the rebuild that changed his career. Butch stood him taller with higher hands, neutralized the face earlier, shortened the back swing, and dramatically reduced the amount of reroutes he needed coming down. It made the swing more connected, more supported at the top, and far more predictable in transition. And the results were undeniable. In 2014, the first full season after the rebuild, Ricky finished T5 at the Masters, T2 at US Open, T2 at the Open Championship, and T3 at the PGA Championship, becoming only the third player ever after Jack Nicholas and Tiger Woods to finish top five and all majors in the same season. The swing change didn’t hurt him, it elevated him into the elite tier. The second major change happened around 2019 when Butch stopped traveling and Ricky moved to John Tillery. The goal was to clean up the geometry and reduce some of the laid-off look by getting the club a little steeper earlier. On video, this version looked more traditional, but for Ricky, the fill was foreign. His entire career had been built around shallowing the shaft late and attacking from the inside. And now he was trying to reverse decades of patterning. And while swing changes aren’t the only variable, the results speak clearly. Between 2020 and 2022, he finished outside of the top 125 in the FedEx twice, lost his PGA Tour status, and had to rely on exemptions, and fell from a former top five player in the world to outside the top 150 in the official World Golf ranking. The swing simply didn’t hold up under pressure, and his best golf evaporated. Again, this isn’t about blaming Tillery. It’s about recognizing that his timing system didn’t match the new geometry, and the performance reflected that. In late 2022, Ricky ended the experiment and returned to Butch Harmon. This third version of his swing focused on getting the club moving more up and down and less around with a cleaner hand path and simpler transitions. The takeaway became more connected, the shaft more on plane and the down swing no longer required a dramatic reroute. In 2023, the first full season back with Harmon, he surged again, posting eight top 10 finishes, climbing inside the top 30 in the world, and winning the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic to end a 4-year drought. The swing didn’t just look better, it performed better. And more importantly, it looked like a motion he trusted again. And there is the lesson for you. Swing changes aren’t inherently good or bad. They only work if they reduce compensations instead of adding new ones. Ricky Fowler is proof. The version of his swing that looked textbook on camera didn’t perform, the version that matched his natural sequencing was the one that produced top five finishes in majors and a comeback win. And again, if you enjoy this type of breakdown, real analysis, real facts, no gimmicks, no pay walls, no sponsors telling me what I’m allowed to say, I upload four to five videos a week on whoever you want me to cover. Drop the next player, the coach you want to analyze in the comments down below. Go check out that detailed Ricky video. Just remember, every swing is unique. Every swing compensates, and the more you understand your cause and effect, the easier the game becomes. Hope that helps you everybody. Ferris and greens. [Music]

Rickie Fowler’s golf swing has changed dramatically over his career, and this video breaks down how Butch Harmon saved his swing twice. We look at Rickie’s early shallow reroute pattern, his 2014 rebuild, the struggles during the Tillery era, and his 2023 comeback. This is a full cause and effect golf swing analysis showing what worked, what failed, and why. If you want to understand swing changes, timing, biomechanics, and real PGA Tour patterns, this breakdown explains everything.

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