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"\n\n Back in April, just days before his Masters debut, 22-year-old Rickie Fowler sauntered into the media room at Augusta National wearing a hat. Not a fedora or a driving cap, it was more the sort you see on skate rats\u2014oversize and flat-billed and, most appallingly, backward. Here stood Fowler\u2014whom you'll maybe know for his Kool-Aid tones and teen-throbby looks\u2014confirming his alleged irreverence. Before he knew it, an Augusta member wordlessly plucked the hat off Fowler's head and flipped it around, as a schoolmaster might with a misbehaving child. \"I think the older fans got the wrong impression,\" he says. \"The story got turned to make me look like a punk kid.\"\n\n Which seems to happen quite a bit. After all, look at the hair spilling down the neck, less golfer than dirt biker. (Fowler raced motocross growing up in California.) Or that grin, not unlike the one a too-tan rich kid might flash you from the end of the bar when you catch him checking out your girlfriend's ass. Or perhaps most obviously, the colors: fruit-snack purple, Oklahoma State orange. All of which makes it tough for Fowler to convince people that he's the deferential workhorse he turns out to be.\n\n Fowler leapt to the PGA Tour in 2009, after his sophomore year of college. His whip-quick, homespun swing\u2014eliciting exceptional power from his five-foot-nine frame\u2014complements the audacious breeziness with which he tears around a course. He made enough runs up leaderboards last season to win Rookie of the Year and notch a slot on the Ryder Cup squad. All stand-alone impressive, but what can't be overemphasized is the crackling charge this sort of presence gives a sport struggling to market itself in the absence of Tiger supremacy.\n\n \"I draw a younger crowd who can relate to me,\" says Fowler. \"Some of the girl fans will message me online, saying, 'You're the reason I watch golf.' \" This isn't to say he's turned the course into a Justin Bieber concert. But if you find yourself amid the swarms of young women\u2014more than you remember from your last time at a tournament\u2014know that, yes, many of those female fans are, in fact, slipping Rickie their phone numbers. \"But look, I've got a girlfriend,\" he says, cracking a diplomatic smile. \"So I'm not calling them back. But it's flattering. Plus, the guys I'm paired with seem to like it: 'Hey, Rickie, I hope there's some girls out following you today.\u2026'\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/rickie-fowler-interview-gq-july-2011>