Rickie Fowler thrills crowd at No. 7 with hole-in-one during final round of Phoenix Open

It wasn’t the famed 16th hole but an ace is an ace, and Rickie Fowler now has one at the WM Phoenix Open.

Fowler, who last won on the PGA Tour at the 2019 Phoenix Open, was 9 under through six holes when he arrived at the long par-3 7th hole.

Measuring 216 yards, Fowler dialed in his 6-iron to perfection. It’s the first ace at the tournament this year. It’s his third on the PGA Tour.

It’s the fifth ace in tournament history at the 7th hole and first one there since Scott Piercy accomplished the feat in the second round in 2020 from 194 yards.

"I've been good mates with Rickie for a long time. We came out pretty much the same year. I understand what he's going through. I think he understands what I'm going through as well. So it's nice to see him playing some really good golf," said playing partner Jason Day. "Very rarely do you see a hole-in-one as well. It was nice to be able to see him hole out because obviously when he holes out they're going to go even crazier."

“It was insane, just seeing that,” said Jamal Williamson, 23, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, “because everybody who was hitting, at first, they were getting some solid swings. But once that one went off, everybody was going crazy over here.

“That was great to see, and I got it on video. It’s my first time ever out here at a golf tournament, so to videotape a hole-in-one was insane. Rickie, at that?”

Williamson said he and Lazaro Martino, 22, from Springfield, Missouri, “got really lucky” in seeing the shot. No. 7 just happened to be the first hole they looked at Sunday.

“We just came here and it just happened,” Williamson said. “There’s really no way to describe the reaction to it. It was just crazy, because there’s no way I was expecting that.”

Martino said he is a big Fowler fan. Like Fowler, he attended Oklahoma State, and like Williamson, said the shot was “crazy.”

“To be honest, this is a super hard par-3 too,” Martinosaid. “I can’t believe that this is the one we saw, that he actually hit a hole-in-one. Only hole-in-one this weekend.”

Spectators around the tee box at the No. 7, like Bobby Martin, 33, from Crystal Lake, Ill., had a perfect vantage point for both the ace and Fowler’s reaction. Martin said the shot “landed short” and “just kept rolling up and feeding in.”

“Everybody was in shock, including him,” Martin said. “He looked like he was in shock too. It was cool.”

While an ace can never be outright expected, that the tournament’s first occurred at the 7th hole, rather than the vaunted 16th, might have added to the gallery’s surprise. “Hell no,” said Greg Spurlock, 61, from Riverside, California, when asked if he expected to witness the shot.

“That’s the first hole-in-one I’ve seen live and I’ve played golf forever,” Spurlock said. “That was kind of cool.”

Fowler finished the tournament at 10 under for the week, tied for 10th behind winner Scottie Scheffler.

There has been a hole-in-one during the tournament in six of the last nine years.

Golf stats guru Justin Ray also reports it’s the 14th career eagle at TPC Scottsdale for Fowler.

The circled 1 on the scorecard took Fowler to 11 under at the time, four back of leader Scottie Scheffler.

Correspondent Erez Ben-Akiva contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Rickie Fowler makes hole-in-one during final round of WM Phoenix Open