If there was a time-lapse camera on the practice range at the Australian Open this week, the one constant in its focus would be the hulking figure of 63-year-old Peter Fowler.
Admittedly, the frame’s not as imperious as it once was, with shoulders ever so slightly stooped in comparison to the strapping Sydneysider who won the national championship in 1983.
But the heart that beats within – and the work ethic that has made him a true great of Australian golf – remains as strong as ever.
Fowler, “Chook” to his myriad mates across the domestic and European tours, first tried to qualify for the Australian Open in Sydney in 1978.
He made the grade the next year – when Jack Newton famously outduelled Greg Norman and Graham Marsh at Melbourne’s Metropolitan, but his biggest prize that week was playing the third round with a Spanish tyro named Seve Ballesteros.
The lessons that Fowler learnt in those times, from such trail-blazing peers, remain etched in his mind.
Now, 43 years later, he remains the epitome of golf’s “grind”.
No matter if it’s the national championship he holds so dear, or a regional pro-am on the Legends Tour on which he remains a key protagonist at age 63, Fowler never leaves a range ball unhit; he never leaves a borrow unread; he never leaves anything to chance.
Often under the guise of sports science, players a third his age hit a bucket of balls on the range and leave thinking they’re fully prepared.
Not Fowler.
And his explanation tells you everything you need to know.
“I remember hearing a story about Ben Hogan being asked why he didn’t have a 6-iron in his bag at a US Open one year and he replied, `Because you don’t need a 6-iron on this course’,” Fowler said.
“He was that prepared about how to play the course that he knew exactly what shots he needed to play, and what clubs he needed to hit them.
“That’s been my thoughts. Not so much the club, but just to be prepared for what you will actually use out there.”
So how does that translate into Fowler’s preparations, especially in comparison to the youth of today?
“I think they hit 30 balls and know they’re flushing it, so they think that’s enough – and it might be, they are a lot more talented than I was at that age,” he said with a grin.
“But I want to be able to hit all the shots I might need out on course, so I hit 30 of this shape, then 30 of another (and so on).
“I also find that I play better the more I play, too. So maybe that’s a bit of it, too.
“But yeah, I know things are different these days.”
Ballesteros once famously rated Fowler’s short game the best he’d seen.
It’s a compliment Fowler obviously still appreciates, especially from arguably the game’s greatest ever shot-maker.
“We were playing one day and he saw me hit a shot out of a bunker and he asked me all about it afterwards,” Fowler recalled.
“He had this drive, almost, to be able to play everything out there and it didn’t bother him so much if he saw a shot that he could picture himself, but if you played one that he hadn’t imagined, he just wanted to know everything … so he could practise it and play it himself.
“But I was very lucky, we all were in that era, to be able to win here and play our way on to the European Tour and we got to play alongside Seve and Sandy Lyle and Nick Faldo, all these guys who were the best in the world at the time.
“Everyone pushed each other and I guess that just stayed with me through the years.
“I still love the game, absolutely. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t.”
Fowler has foregone the defence of his Senior European Tour Championship crown in the Seychelles this week to play again on the Sandbelt.
“These are my favourite courses. To be able to play different shots and run balls on to greens is something you can’t do on the Sydney courses which I just can’t compete on because I can’t match these young guys with the power games.
“But here I still feel like in the right conditions, I can compete around here because it’s not all about length.”
Fowler’s 1983 Aussie Open triumph came at this week’s co-host Kingston Heath, beating a young Ian Baker-Finch into second place by three strokes.
“It doesn’t seem like 39 years ago, but here we are.
“This might be my last Open, I’m not sure, but I do know that I’m much more likely to play if it’s in Melbourne.”
There’s another aspect of Fowler playing in Victoria this week that is particularly special, with his long-time caddie Paul Skinner back on the bag.
Skinner, an outstanding professional in his own right who has a superb record in developing promising amateurs and young professionals, met Fowler in a most extraordinary way, the same week he won the national crown in 1983.
RIGHT: Golf's greatest grinder puts his practice into action. PHOTO: Getty Images.
“I always liked to practise my putting in the evening, so I was there at Kingston Heath and Paul – about eight years old then – just stood on the side of the putting green for two hours for two days in a row with his father,” Fowler recalled.
“At the end of the second day … I said to him, `Mate, if you’re going to wait here that long, you may as well come and have a putt’.
“So he came out, had a few putts and I gave him tickets for all the golf tournaments for him and his father and we just built up a friendship.
“I’ve seen his golf develop over the years … it’s great to have him back this week.”
Dedication, the Fowler way, is clearly a two-way street.
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