Playing at Bay Hill Club this week, Rickie Fowler will be focused on earning his place in the Masters Tournament. However, he will also be happy to get the opportunity to participate in the Arnold Palmer Invitation once again. The 37-year-old expressed how he exactly feels during his post-round presser.

“It gave me a little motivation,” Fowler told the reporters. He added, “Yeah, it was a bummer not to be here, but sponsor invites are sponsor invites. There’s no guarantee, and it’s up to the tournament and the people involved who they want to give those to.”

Fowler managed to get a lot of sponsor invites last season. And he also faced a lot of criticism for it. However, he was snubbed from an exemption from the Bay Hill Signature event by Arnold Palmer‘s family. Back on the field without an invitation this year, he revealed how much better it is to earn his way in.

“So it’s a lot easier when you go out and earn it. I did a good job of that last year through the summer to get myself back inside the top 50, so I didn’t have to ask for favors or ask for invites. So a little more stress-free this year.”

The six-time PGA Tour champion ended the FedEx Cup 2025 season in 32nd position. That was enough for him to secure a place in the Signature events for 2026. That meant Fowler didn’t have to rely on exemptions from tournament sponsors to get into the $20 million tournaments.

With that, Fowler also expressed his joy at joining the field at Bay Hill. He also stated that there wasn’t any bad blood between himself and the Arnold Palmer family for snubbing him last season.

That’s probably because Fowler is focused on bigger goals at the moment.

Rickie Fowler’s priorities are to qualify for bigger events

He may have made it into the Arnold Palmer Invitational 2026 field. However, that’s not where Rickie Fowler’s dreams end. He wants to secure a ticket to Augusta National as well. And that might be a challenging dream to overcome in such a short span of events.

The Rickie Fowler Tracker account tweeted, “To reach the Top 50 this week, Rickie will need a Solo 5th finish or better. He needs 17.18402 points across the next three events to reach #50 on this week’s OWGR. There’s a lot of different scenarios but three straight Top 15s should do it. Thanks to @mikeray for putting this together!”

Just to clarify, reaching the top-50 will be the goal to make it to the Masters Tournament field. As the tweet states, he will need to finish solo 5th or better at Bay Hill Club.

As things stand after approximately half a day’s play, Fowler is at T6 after he completed his round. He is in a great position to finish inside the top 5. His previous best in the tournament is a T3 way back in 2013. If he is able to match that this weekend, then the 37-year-old will confirm his place in the 2026 Masters Tournament without requiring a special invitation.