Rickie Fowler is our son Casey’s favorite player. After this weekend at the 2018 Masters, he’s one of mine too.

He shot 65-67, good enough to win a lot of majors, definitely a lot of Masters Tournaments. Patrick Reed was a brilliant one stroke better.

Fowler began Sunday grinding it out, five shots off the lead. He shot the front in 1-under; that wouldn’t be enough. He checked the leaderboard at the turn and saw his friend Jordan Speith on fire, closing on Reed with a shot-out-of-a-cannon round that was lifting him from ninth place and past some of the game’s elite players.

“To see (where Jordan was) was kind of the kick in the butt; I knew what I needed to do,” Fowler said.

His birdie on the 18^th made Reed have to par the finishing hole to win. He did.

“I’m happy with the way we played this week, I’m just not happy that we finished second,” Fowler said. “I want that green jacket. This is a step in the right direction.”

He has four PGA Tour victories and a pair on the European Tour. He’s ranked 8^th in the world and a regular member of America’s teams in international competition. At 29, he’s still one of the young stars of the PGA.

“Look on that board,” he said, “and you’ve got a lot of guys high in the World Rankings.”

He’s one. Now his just needs to win “One.” A major. Asked what his career goal is at his point, he said, “Win a major.”

And what would be the best way to accomplish that?

“Not start the final round five back,” he said, “and THEN shoot 67.”

Then instead of him hanging around the scoring room to congratulate a winning friend, as he did with Reed, it could be Fowler being congratulated. He’s got three more majors coming this summer.

“I feel like this is the year we’ll knock it off,” he said.

I know of at least two other people who hope so.

-30-

I noticed the other day that new New York Yankees’ slugger Giancarlo Stanton struck out five times in a game. But that’s only because he only came to the plate five times.

A few days later, Stanton struck out five times again, but this time it took seven at-bats, so I guess that’s something of an improvement.

In both cases, Yankee fans booed. Believe it or not, that’s what caught my eye. Look, Stanton is symbolic of what baseball has become (at least for now) and he may well strike out 200 times. He may also hit 60 home runs (he had 59 last year), so many fans might look at that as a wash.

Here’s my question — why is booing still a thing? Do fathers teach their kids to boo? I’m serious here … why do we need it? I fully understand many think that by paying for a ticket, it gives you the “right” to boo. But I would have liked to believe that we could voice our displeasure in more progressive ways.

I’m not saying we need to be all lovey-dovey, but it’s getting to the point where baseball fans will boo on a 6-4-3 double play. The most ridiculous booing in all of sports are the morons who boo either (1) an intentional walk or (2) a pickoff attempt at first. These people need to have the ticket-buying privleges revoked.

I’m OK with fans booing unsportsmanlike behavior. If a guy gets clothes-lined on the way to the basket, boo away. If a pitcher goes high and tight on consecutive pitches, have at it. But for every 10 booing episodes in sports, at least nine are just plain ridiculous.

Booing has basically made its way out of the performing arts (except for opera, of all things). We haven’t evolved any faster than that? Professional and collegiate teams made announcements and have Jumbotron message instructing fans about stadium policy regarding acceptable behavior. So it’s not like we haven’t drawn a line on this side of anything goes.

We just need to re-draw the line.