SANDWICH, England – Treacherous Sandwich asks all the right questions. The wind, the hay, the humps and bumps all conspire to test every tool in a player’s arsenal – and Collin Morikawa’s performance on Day 2 of the 149th edition showcased a complete game.
He defied wicked crosswinds off the tee and negotiated disturbingly slow greens on his way to a 6-under 64. But that’s not what propelled the 24-year-old Open rookie into contention, two back (at 9 under) of leader Louis Oosthuizen. His driving and putting were impressive, but his iron game was wonderfully sublime.
“Do I have to pick just one?” gushed Morikawa’s caddie, J.J. Jakovac, when asked to pick his man’s best iron shot.
Instead, Jakovac unpacked the artistry of Morikawa.
“At No. 9,” he started, “he was on a 45-degree upslope and into a pretty good wind from 129 [yards]. He hit 8-iron to 2 feet. Really good.”
And the 11th hole, a 238-yard par 3 that also played into that English wind. “That was silly good,” Jakovac said. “It was a 5-iron, a little trappy shot into the wind.”
Jakovac rounded out his list with Morikawa’s approach into the 12th hole. “It was a wedge from 115 [yards]. He had to saw it off. That was huge,” he said.
If Jakovac’s praise sounds a tad too one-sided let Corey Conners, who played the first two days at Royal St. George’s with Morikawa and is tied for ninth, testify.
“Really nice third shot into No. 13. Hit it into the bunker and had to lay up, beautiful shot. Perfect distance control,” Conners said of Morikawa’s iron play. “He hit a 5-iron on the 11th hole. He likes to work the ball from left-to-right and that shot kind of called for a right-to-left shot and he hit a beautiful shot there.”
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Morikawa birdied the ninth, 11th and 12th holes, in case that wasn’t clear, to go along with four other birdies on what was otherwise a demanding day for the other 155 players in the field. Not that anything looked particularly difficult for Morikawa.
But then Morikawa conjuring up a stripe show from the fairway is no huge surprise. He’s first on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: approach the green by a mile. Seriously, the gap between Morikawa and the second-ranked player on that list (Paul Casey) is less than the gap between Casey and No. 54 (Francesco Molinari) on the same list.
If Ben Hogan were still alive, he’d be asking Morikawa for his secret.
But if Morikawa’s ball-striking was predictable there was a healthy degree of unknowns heading into the year’s final major. At last week’s Scottish Open on the European Tour, his tie for 71st was far from inspiring. The problem was his irons launched differently off the links turf and his lag putting, by his own admission, was “unacceptable.”
He switched out his 7-, 8- and 9-irons for a different model that allowed him to see the shots coming out of the correct window and he spent the week practicing what Jakovac called “choked-down, three-quarter punch shots.”
“Those are three crucial clubs that are some of my favorite clubs,” said Morikawa, who narrowly missed a 10-footer for birdie at the last hole that would have tied the course record. “My 8-iron is my favorite club in the bag, and when I wasn’t able to hit it last week, I knew I had to try something different.”
He also switched to a standard grip for putts outside of 30 feet after struggling on the slower links greens at the Scottish Open.
“Last week I left so many putts short, and not just 4 or 5 feet short, 10 feet short. It’s not acceptable,” Morikawa said on Thursday. “We figured out a conventional grip just has that little extra pop. I didn’t have to change anything mentally from 30 feet, it was that grip and that stroke produced something that just rolled off the face a little faster.”
Morikawa’s links experience is predictably thin and yet he played Friday’s round like he’d learned the game on this windswept coast. He was able to deftly flight shots into and against the heavy coastal wind and when he did get in trouble, like at the par-4 13th hole, he leaned on what he does best.
“I think I had 115 [yards] in at 13. Hit a pitching wedge into the wind, and the entire shot looked like it was right on a string. It looked straight at the hole,” he said without an ounce of false modesty.
Continued success off the tee, however relative that may be considering he ranks 95th in the field in driving accuracy, and on the greens will be crucial this weekend, but that’s not what will win the claret jug for Morikawa. He’ll win this Open the way he won last year’s PGA Championship (in his first start in that major) - from the fairway with an iron in his hand.
“I always try and fit my game into how do I play my best golf, and I feel like I can win if I stick to what I’ve been doing, stick to my approach shots, stick to those 8-irons, 9-irons, 7-irons, because that’s my bread and butter,” he said. “That’s what I love to do.”
That’s what he does better than anyone in the game.