Ask anyone on Collin Morikawa’s team, and they’ll tell you Morikawa tends to get down on himself easily. For someone that talented, with two majors in hand, and who often relies too much on results for validation, the past few years have been understandably frustrating. As Morikawa puts it, “You feel like, I’m putting in my absolute everything, and I’m missing the cut or I’m finishing 30th, and you’re like, man, what’s going on?”
Morikawa’s last top-10 finish came at last summer’s Rocket Classic, his last win at the 2023 Zozo Championship.
And despite an uplifting offseason, he opened the new year MC, T-54, and has dropped to No. 19 in the world rankings after sitting second not long ago.
“I went into this year feeling really good about myself,” Morikawa said. “You go out and play two rounds at Sony, and I missed the cut, and you realize, man, do I need to redo everything that you thought you were doing for the last two months?”
But Morikawa, even as piling up top-20s became a challenge, stayed the course, and now he’s got his best chance in some time to break out of this slump. Morikawa’s 10-under 62 Saturday at Pebble Beach not only marked his best round on the PGA Tour since last year’s third round of The Sentry but it pushed Morikawa into a tie for second, just two shots back of leader Akshay Bhatia, at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
“Ball was going where I wanted, putts were dropping when I needed them,” Morikawa said. “Never got ahead of myself.”
Morikawa’s recent optimism, however, wasn’t all his own doing. Some of the credit can be given to Morikawa’s longtime instructor, Rick Sessinghaus, whom Morikawa returned to in mid-2024 after a brief stint with Mark Blackburn.
In recent weeks, the topic of conversation between Morikawa and Sessinghaus was Morikawa’s inability to continue momentum and go low.
On Friday morning, after a solid-yet-unspectacular, 3-under 69 around Spyglass Hill, Sessinghaus had another message.
“He reminded me yesterday, when I first came out and turned pro, like I didn’t care about honestly making cuts or top-20s; I came out to win,” Morikawa said. “When he told me that yesterday, there was that mindset switch going into today. I wanted to come out and win, win the weekend, win the tournament. Now we’ve given ourselves a chance. It’s a small mindset adjustment, and without him telling me that, who knows what I would have shot today. But I’m out here to win.”
Morikawa carded 11 birdies on Saturday, most before the winds really whipped up, while gaining a whopping 6.472 strokes on the field on approach, the second-best mark all-time in the ShotLink era (since 2004). He was negative on Friday but still is up 8.891 strokes for the week, nearly two shots more than the second-ranked player in strokes gained approach, Rory McIlroy. That’s vintage Morikawa, who says he’s feeling “like his old self” with the way he’s controlling the ball right now.
“I’m seeing a lot more pin-high shots, which is great for someone who relies on their ball-striking,” said Morikawa, who ranked No. 42 on Tour in strokes gained approach two seasons ago before bouncing back to rank third last season. “It’s nice to know essentially where your irons are going to start. For me, the start lines haven’t been as good over the past handful of months.”
The putter, though not surprisingly, is still holding Morikawa back. He’s No. 59 this week in strokes gained putting and No. 150 so far this year, a season removed from ranking No. 156 amid a revolving door of flatsticks. His latest putter switch came two weeks ago when he stole one from Tour buddy Kurt Kitayama, who play a lot with Morikawa back home in Las Vegas. It’s a mallet with not as much toe-hang as Morikawa typically plays.
“It’s doing what I want,” Morikawa added. “Hopefully we can start them online tomorrow and see if they drop.”
If they do, Morikawa will likely win the tournament. He’s aware of that, too.
“I know deep down inside me – like I’m a competitor, I feel like I can play against the top players in the world, even a guy like Scottie Scheffler when he’s playing great,” Morikawa said. “Like, you know, I still believe that, and until the day I don’t, I’m going to keep going head on. It’s a very, very fine line to say, OK, you’re a couple shots away from a great week, or you really got to dig deep to figure it out.”
If Saturday was any indication, Morikawa isn’t in need of another pep talk.