Rickie Fowler finishes with historic streak to take lead at The Players Championship

That laser from Rickie Fowler might serve as the fulcrum of what may go down as the best finish ever at The Players Championship. Standing 240 yards out in the fairway, Fowler smoked a fairway metal to just two-feet for a tap-in eagle that rocketed him just one shot off the lead.

The eagle came in the middle of a 6-under in a six-hole stretch that was one of the most memorable streaks in recent PGA Tour seasons.

Fowler spent much of Sunday out of range of the lead and out of view of NBC cameras. But he pulled even with Sergio Garcia at the 17th hole, and then shot into sole possession of the lead at 11-under when the Spaniard made his second bogey behind him. The pin at the 17th is the traditional tucked location off to the right, but Fowler flew one right over there to set up another birdie and the momentary co-lead:

Fowler has played well all week and hung around the first page of the leaderboard, but it didn’t look like he would get in the mix on Sunday. That streak to the clubhouse came when he was five shots off the lead with just over an hour left in his round, and then out of nowhere, he turned it on to put a charge into the crowd lining TPC Sawgrass’ finishing stretch.

The 5-under through 5-hole stretch was enough to put him in the lead, but for good measure, he topped it off with another birdie on the 18th to get in front by two.

It astounding to watch and turned a sleepy weekend at The Players into one of the best finishes of the year. His absurd card:

Now he waits for the seven groups behind him to see if they can pull off the kind of chase he just strung together.