To this day, no one has quite impacted the game of golf as much as Tiger Woods. It was the game for the oldies and not something a teenager would dream about. However, after Woods’s ‘Hello World’ in 1996, things started to change for the game. It became cool to like golf, to play golf because Woods was doing it. As Max Homa, the ultimate Tiger Woods fan said, “He was the best and just completely reshaped golf, he made it cool.” This is true for many pros but maybe not for the LPGA Tour or women golfers.

Michelle Wie West became a young prodigy in the golfing world at the age of 10 as she became the youngest golfer to qualify for the USGA Amateur Championship. But this success also brought quite a lot of bullying in West’s life. At the age of 10, she didn’t want to stand out among her peers. She recalled in The Scoop recent episode, “It was hard it was really hard. I was like bullied heavily… When you’re 10 you don’t want to stand out, right? You don’t want to be the kid, the star student.” Despite being a talented golfer, West spent her life normally and with bullying.

The reason behind her bullying, the 5-time LPGA Tour winner said was that, “Back in the day golf was not cool. I feel like golf recently got cool.” Although after his debut in 1996, Woods was already attracting hundreds to be around him, because it was more of a male-dominated sport, for the women it was still hard to play golf. And West surprisingly even said, “Tiger wasn’t cool in high school.”

She also added that even Rory McIlroy wasn’t amusing enough when he was in his early twenties. While Tiger Woods’s aura failed to make golf better for West, she does have one pro who showed golf’s cooler side.

So who made golf cool for Michelle Wie West if not Woods?

By 2009, golf was already cool. Whether Michelle Wie West agrees or not, Tiger Woods’s presence popularized it all around the globe and not just in America. However, 2009 was also the year when Woods’s divorce broke out with his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren. And the 82-time PGA Tour decided to take a short break from the game as the 2009 season was ending. At that same time, a guy with long but styled hair, a hat, and colorful clothes made his debut.

He wore orange on Sundays while Tiger Woods wore red. As the 48-year-old wasn’t there on the green, Rickie Fowler was, a young golfer from Oklahoma State University and pretty talented. For West, he was the one who paved the way for golf. The former LPGA Tour star said, “I feel like Ricky made it cool. Ricky made it cool to be like a young golfer in school and like to play college golf.” To some extent, West also gave credit to Justin Thomas.

But mostly Fowler was the one who aided the game of golf to become an amusing sport. It is quite a compliment for Fowler to have Wie West say that he made the game cool. While that’s true, West should also credit herself for making golf cooler for women and empowering many to learn and join golf.