THE AMERICAN EXPRESS

January 19, 2024

Rickie Fowler

PGA WEST Pete Dye Stadium Course

Quick Quotes

Q. When, where and anything about each of those?

RICKIE FOWLER: (Looking at pictures.) Let's see, I'm actually not sure where the first pic -- my guess would be one of the SCPGA courses in Beaumont, maybe.

Second pic is that Hogan Cup?

Q. It may be, I have no idea.

RICKIE FOWLER: I believe. It looks like a team event. Representing southern California. I think. But, yeah, Tom and I grew up playing a lot of junior golf together, and he always pounded it by me. He was a lot bigger than me. I was the little kid. We had a lot of good memories, because I used to come out to the desert for a lot of junior golf, and we both played out here, obviously with him living out here in La Quinta, and then as well as stuff around southern California.

Q. The military, I asked him about it, and how that kind of defines the person so much. Have you always known him to be kind of a straightforward, very, not very, confident, but a confident guy, just a good guy, someone that would be a good fit out here?

RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, definitely I feel like he's always had the confidence. He's a great guy. I haven't been able to spend very much time with him in actually quite a few years, so I'm looking forward to him being out here and us kind of reliving the junior golf days. And, no, it's been, I've followed him over the years from him being with the Air Force, and then he's been grinding for years through mini-tour stuff and out on the Korn Ferry Tour. It's fun to keep up with the guys that I played junior golf with and different stuff like that. He's just kind of continued to grind it out, so really cool to see him come full circle where we used to play junior golf back in the day, and be out here starting his PGA TOUR career.

Q. Is there one thing, humorous, serious, whatever, one thing somebody ought to know about Tom Whitney?

RICKIE FOWLER: No, there's nothing that really comes to mind, other than, I mean, you look at the pictures and, I mean he's still a big guy. He used to pound it by me in junior golf. I could get it out there pretty good, since I was, for a little guy, but, yeah, it was tough playing against him. We had some good battles. He won, I won. He was a good player. I'm excited that he's finally out here and he's earned it, he's putting the work in.