Rickie Fowler hopes Rocket Mortgage Classic defense will 'reignite' his season

Fowler claimed his first victory in more than four years at Detroit Golf Club 12 months ago, beating two-time major winner Collin Morikawa and Adam Hadwin in a play-off with a birdie on the first extra hole.

The 35-year-old's previous win had come more than 1,600 days earlier at the at the WM Phoenix Open in February 2019, although his game had been trending in the right direction with a tie for fifth in the US Open at Los Angeles Country Club, where he carded a record-equalling 62 in the first round.

Fowler's sixth PGA Tour victory in Detroit looked to have got his career firmly back on track but he has failed to record a top-10 finish since and missed the cut in the Memorial Tournament and US Open before a tie for 20th in last week's Travelers Championship.

"Obviously it was a nice week [last year] and a big relief after the few years leading up to it," Fowler told a pre-tournament press conference.

"Looking forward to being back and picking up where we left off last year. I haven't played quite that well since then so it would be nice to kind of get things going again this week.

"I feel like it's a fairly simple, old-school golf course and if you can just get to the green, it becomes a bit of [a case of] who can make more putts throughout the week.

"We don't get to play very many old-school golf courses like this so it's a treat for a lot of guys who can appreciate old-school golf course architecture.

"It's a fun course to play and especially having good memories and coming off the win last year, we'll see if we can kind of reignite some stuff from then and get past the little bit of a slow year it's been and just go have some fun.

"I started to score a little bit better last week, which is obviously the name of the game, putting up good numbers.

"Putted well last week; kind of the first week to see some good progress and kind of build some momentum and some confidence going into this week."