The Sunday Orange is staying in the closet for the first week of April. The 2026 Masters Tournament will proceed without one of its most iconic figures, Rickie Fowler. Despite a season filled with high-level consistency, Fowler found himself in a daunting reality coming into the TPC San Antonio, the last stop on the Tour before the Masters.

He needed to win the tournament outright, but the 2018 Masters runner-up was unable to summon the last-minute magic and ended up at T103 at the conclusion of day 2. It’s his fifth absence from the Masters in the past six years.

After a painful stretch of missing the Masters from 2021 to 2023, a resurgent Fowler appeared to have turned the corner in 2024. He earned his way back that year after a win at the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic, which broke a four-year victory drought. However, the momentum proved difficult to sustain.

Fowler once again failed to qualify for Augusta National in 2025 after a winless 2024 campaign that saw his OWGR slip back outside the elite thresholds. And now, coming into the 2026 Valero Texas Open, Fowler was No. 65 in the OWGR. So once again, just like last year, a win at the event was his only way to get into the Masters field. Fowler was confident that he could turn things around.

“You go to every event to tee it up to win,” he said. “A win would be nice… but it’s not the end of the world if we aren’t there next week.”

Fowler’s pursuit began with a resilient opening-round 70 (-2), which included a four-under-par back nine. However, the momentum stalled during the second round. Playing in a high-profile group alongside Tommy Fleetwood and Hideki Matsuyama, Fowler struggled with his irons.

He stumbled early with two bogeys in his first four holes, a deficit that proved too steep to overcome. While he drained a 29-foot birdie putt on the 10th and hit a spectacular 309-yard approach to nine feet on the 8th, his lack of consistency on approach shots left him with too many decisive putts. By the time he reached the closing stretch, the dream of a late-round charge had faded, ending his run for a 2026 invite.

But apart from this result, Fowler has quietly put together one of the most consistent stretches dating back to last summer. Before he missed the cut at the Houston Open, he’d logged six top-20s in eight starts. That’s why Data Golf currently ranks Fowler as the 25th best player in the world—the highest of any player not in the Masters field. But the OWGR rewards very high finishes over consistency. As Fowler hasn’t had a top-five finish since 2024, he’s No. 65 in the OWGR and on the outside looking in.

So the news of Fowler’s miss started a wave of immediate reactions from the fans who had witnessed both ups and downs in his career and felt the current exclusion very jarring.

Fans aren’t happy with Fowler’s absence from the Augusta Invitational list

One fan said, “Sad!”(with a sad-faced emoji) while another added, “pain”(with an I am sad emoji). And many others repeated the same.

Just days ago, during The Players Championship, the positive response from fans during his ‘mic’d up’ moments with Jordan Spieth, where Fowler walked alongside when Spieth delivered a monologue on mini-driver spin rates, showed exactly why he remains an ambassador for the sport even when not winning any tournament.

From his 2015 Players Championship victory or his 2014 season, where he finished top-five in every major, to now, when he occasionally wins any event, he always provides an accessibility that few other stars can provide. Fans always want to see him at the big event wearing his iconic Sunday orange.

“Saw most of his 2nd round. Just didn’t hit it close enough on approach shots. Hard to make long putts. Can’t count on making them more than once or twice. And then misses a short par putt on 15.”

It’s the reality. While Fowler’s putting remains elite (ranked 11th), his approach-the-green game has become a liability, falling to 72nd on Tour. In his recent missed cut at the Houston Open, just a week before, he lost over 4.12 strokes on approach, the worst single-round performance of his season. 

For some, the frustration has turned into a deeper worry, as they commented, “Concerned.”

This concern is understandable given Fowler’s historic low just a few seasons ago. After climbing back from a career-low ranking of 185th in 2022 to the top 25 in 2023, his recent inability to make cuts or contend in Signature Events feels like a reversion to his mid-career struggles. And now with the Masters out of reach, the conversation has shifted toward how Fowler can salvage the remainder of his 2026 season.

One fan said, “Time for a change,” while another added, “PGA next is nice as he almost certainly gets an invite based on OWGR. Needs some solid performances between that and the 4 signatures to get into Shinnecock. Iron and wedge play has been dreadful.”

Fowler currently ranks 116th in proximity from over 200 yards and ranks 145th in proximity from 225 to 250 yards. While he will likely receive an invite to the PGA Championship based on his OWGR standing, the path to the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills is not guaranteed.