Throughout a down period in his career that is now approaching three years, Rickie Fowler managed to maintain an air of positivity, sprinkled with some self-deprecation, while seemingly never allowing for any sort of dark moments to consume him.
He approached his slump with hard work, didn't get impatient by moving on from his coach, John Tillery, talked a good game and simply expected his golf to one day cooperate.
Three tournaments into a new season and there are certainly plenty of positives for Fowler to build on, but also a slap of reality that played out over the weekend in Japan, where he was unable to take advantage of a small field and the chance to improve his world ranking.