Yeah, I don't agree with the Fowler invite.
- Based on performances? He has not finished in the top 10 for any tournament since the 2020 American Express. That was 27 starts ago.
- Playing records? I guess this means record at the PGA Championship, which for Fowler is 2 top 10's in 11 starts. Career wise, 5 PGA tour wins with 2 more global W's. Not bad, but not worthy of special treatment, IMO.
- OWGR standing- Fowler is 111th. The cutoff to earn an invite based off OWGR is 50th. He's not really on the bubble.
From what I can tell, the closest qualification criteria for Fowler is being a member of the 2018 Ryder Cup team. He was a member but there is stipulation that you have to be in the top 100 in the OWGR as of 5/9/21 to receive the invite. He is not in the field at the Valspar this week so he will not move into the top 100 by 5/9. If they wanted to give him a "close enough" on this criteria point, they should also include Alex Noren who was a 2018 Ryder Cup player currently ranked 107th (an NLU OWGR manipulator!). As far as I can tell, Noren is not invited to the PGA.
His resume doesn't really scream special invite to me, but it's their tournament and they can do whatever they want. They should've just said "we like him and he's popular" instead of the BS about performance.