In My Golf Locker: Dexter Fowler

For Dexter Fowler, golf was always there just waiting for him to embrace it. Growing up in Atlanta, his dad tried to get him into the game early on but it never seemed to stick. Fowler had his focus on baseball, working toward what would become an illustrious career in the MLB packed with All Star looks, an Olympic bronze medal and a championship ring.

Dexter Fowler of the Chicago Cubs celebrates after hitting a lead off home run in the first inning against the Cleveland Indians in Game Seven of the 2016 World Series. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

It wasn’t until after he had a World Series under his belt and moved to Saint Louis when Fowler caught the golf bug. In the final years of his 14-season MLB career he started teeing it up more and more, wishing he’d paid attention to all those times his dad tried to teach him the rules in their annual golf outings during his childhood.

He lowered his double-digit handicap into the ones, twos and threes—1.6 being his best and blaming his current 3-ish handicap on lessons getting in his head, balancing life as a father of two with the busy schedule as a broadcast analyst and temps in the hundreds keeping him in the AC when he's home in Las Vegas.

Former MLB player Dexter Fowler plays his shot from the second tee during Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions 2025 at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)

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“I wish I would have played more golf when I was playing [baseball],” Fowler said on the Vanity Index Podcast. “That’s when you’re traveling and can get on all the courses…missed out on a lot of courses but I’m making up for lost time.”

Fowler’s first major investment into his golf game was purchasing a Full Swing before retiring from the MLB in 2021. He’s now a Full Swing Ambassador with a sim at home complimented by a virtual putting green alongside it and a kit to take on the road.

Back in St. Louis he’d swing away in the sim like the batting cages, these days he’s dialing in his putting and chipping every free moment he gets. It’s no wonder his 60-degree is his favorite club in the bag and we’re sure his Circle T Scottie Cameron isn’t far behind.

He's even getting his two young daughters in on the game. At ages 6 and 11, he's hoping to share his golf passion with them and to set them up for success with the lifelong skill that golf is. His oldest is taking lessons and already has a natural golf swing developed.

I was self-taught from YouTube and everywhere looking stuff up and trying it all,” Fowler, 39, said. “With baseball players and any swinging sport, you understand a swing and that’s a lot of it. If you don’t understand the swing it’s hard to replicate what you want to do.

The evolution of his golf game (and obsession) has taken a similar route to his gear evolution—Fowler jumped in and felt his way around, tinkering until he got it just right. Fowler started with single length irons a la Mr. YouTube himself, Bryson DeChambeau.

“I had the Cobras, the Bryson DeChambeau setup because I wanted to simplify everything,” Fowler said. “I didn’t know where to put the ball in my stance. So I was like, let me just be consistent and do this. Then I got some more standard length Cobras before going to Ping route and I got fitted for those and realized I needed something different because my game started getting better and I needed more player-friendly irons.”

That’s when he was introduced to Miura and fell in love with the brand. He’s now a Miura ambassador. Fowler worked with the Miura team to find the perfect iron setup to fit his specific swing mechanics that, to no surprise, includes a major-league swing speed. The former center fielder gravitates to a more blade-style iron with a smaller top line—coming a long way from the lightweight, whippy clubs he thought he once needed.

Everybody always says 'I don't want to get fitted before I know how to play,'" Fowler said, "I think it should be the opposite. You should get fitted before you go play because at the end of the day you're going to be trying to hit the clubs that aren't for you. You create bad habits.

On advice from a one Colin Morikawa, Fowler recently put a TaylorMade 9-wood in play, replacing his 4-iron. Fowler worked with the TaylorMade team when one of the equipment trucks stopped by his home course, The Summit Club in Las Vegas—a course with a long list of PGA TOUR members.

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Along with Morikawa, it's not unusual for Fowler to tee it up with Min Woo Lee, Kurt Kitayama or Justin Thomas. Fowler is playing from the tips like the best of them, but is still in awe by the talent and consistency when he goes up against the pros. He stays away from betting games on the course in part on advice from his dad and in part to maintain his focus on the competition of the game itself.

"I didn't grow up betting, my dad said 'you lose friends betting,'" Fowler said. "Golf is enough stress...competition for me is enough."

Justin Thomas of Atlanta Drive GC talks with former baseball player Dexter Fowler after the TGL presented by SoFi match between the Atlanta Drive GC and the New York Golf Club at SoFi Center on March 24, 2025 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Fowler’s attention to detail when it comes to his game and gear setup was the same seeking-perfect process he used when selecting a bat.

“I’d get six or so bats and just look at them and be like “I don’t like the cup of this or that,” I can feel if it is right when I pick it up,” Fowler said. “Almost like Tiger with his golf clubs how he can tell what is different just by picking it up, that’s how I am with bats.”

But his meticulous eye doesn’t stop with his sticks, have you seen Fowler’s golf bags? Fowler works with golf bag and leather goods maker Ace of Clubs Golf Company to get kitted out with the kind of custom golf bags dreams are made of.

He brought Realtree on the golf course before Rickie Fowler and Puma did it head-to-toe earlier this year. Switching out bags a few times of year, he’s got a NASCAR-inspired bag right now with a design similar to the iconic Jeff Gordon Dupont jackets.

Photo Courtesy of Dexter Fowler

“I always want to keep switching it up and keep people on their toes,” Fowler said. “I love fashion, so I try to stay, you know, in front of the curve.”

As a Jordan athlete with access to custom and yet-to-be-released products from the golf collection, Fowler’s on-course look is as about ahead of the curve as you can get. He was a Jordan Baseball ambassador during his professional career and continues to work with the brand in retirement, his focus a little more on the golf gear these days.

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Fowler’s always been a sneakerhead, it was reported he packed over 20 shoes during spring training with the Colorado Rockies in 2013 and even gifted his 2016 Chicago Cubs teammates Air Jordan 12s shortly before the team would break their 71-year curse to win the World Series.

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For golf shoes, Fowler prefers spiked Jordans and has even brought some of his custom turfs from the MLB out on the golf course. Ground up from the Jordans on his feet, Fowler will typically wear a well-tailored, slightly baggy pair of golf pants along with a mockneck short sleeve golf shirt and a visor to finish it all off.

“I'm now a visor guy, so that visor I’ve been wearing was actually a prototype visor with the Jordan brand,” Fowler said. “They don't have any more colors of that one, so they're like ‘don't mess this one up is the prototype,’ but I'm definitely getting those before they come out.”

Aligning with the Jordan brand, his color palette bounces between neutrals and pastels. He even recreated an iconic Micheal Jordan golf photo for the Jordan Brand in which he rocked Carolina blues, a backwards driver cap balancing a stogie and an iron.

The rest of Fowler's on-course setup is fairly simple. Classic Titleist white glove, simple black towel, ballmarker from The Summit Club and usually a Modelo in hand with some Dots pretzels to snack on—doesn't get better than that, does it?

Listen Dexter Fowler on the Vanity Index Podcast, available on Spotify and Apple Music.