LAS VEGAS – After beginning his professional career by making 22 consecutive cuts – a stretch bettered by only Tiger Woods – reigning PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa hasn’t made it to the weekend in two of his last four starts as he trunk-slammed on Friday in the Northern Trust and then the U.S. Open in his most recent start.
Did it throw him off-kilter? Not in the least.
“It’s nothing worrying me,” Morikawa said Tuesday at TPC Summerlin ahead of Thursday’s start of the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. “It’s just me. I’m just trying to win at the end of the day. That mindset of trying to win every week is there. If I finish second or miss the cut, we didn’t get the job done.
“It’s just how much can I learn. I learn a lot from missed cuts, so having a couple missed cuts is going to put me on my toes to really figure out what I need to be a little more consistent on and kind of give myself a chance to win coming down nine holes on Sunday.”
During his break, Morikawa learned that he was working on too many new things in his swing recently and he got out of sorts. At 23, he doesn’t have a lot of scar tissue to worry about, either. And he needed a break – he had played in eight of 11 weeks and demands on his time triggered upward after he won the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco this first week of August.
“What really kind of popped up in my head was what was I doing really well last summer, the summer I came out when I turned pro, what did I do well in college, and kind of go back to those things,” Morikawa said. “Don’t try and change too much just because I might be playing well, last season went well.
“Yes I’m trying to get better, trying to figure things out, but sometimes you got to kind of revert to what you did before. So just some mental things here and there that I picked up on. Having two weeks off kind of got me refreshed. I put the clubs away for a week and brought them back out and feel as ready as I could ever be.”
The Cal-Berkeley graduate with a degree in business administration also called upon some cherished memories to calm any concern. He’s still ranked No. 5 in the world and No. 15 in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings. He has as many wins on the PGA Tour – three – as he does missed cuts. And two of those came last season – in a playoff against Justin Thomas in the Workday Charity Open and by two shots in the PGA Championship.
He also is calling on good vibes as he heads into a three-week stretch where he’ll play in Las Vegas twice in north of Los Angeles once.
“They’re pretty much home events,” said Morikawa, who lives about an 8-minute drive away from TPC Summerlin and grew up in L.A. “There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed, getting out, driving to the course, feeling fresh.”
He’s also familiar with TPC Summerlin after moving to Las Vegas in the summer of 2019. He’s played the course enough to know it well, and his caddie, JJ Jakovac, has lived in Las Vegas for years and knows the course as well as anyone.
And Morikawa knows he’ll have to go low this week to win. Last year, he shot 12 under and finished in a tie for 42nd as Kevin Na and Patrick Cantlay finished regulation at 23 under (Na won in a playoff).
“We’ve been playing some pretty tough courses,” said Morikawa, alluding to Winged Foot for the U.S. Open, East Lake for The Tour Championship, and Olympia Fields for the BMW Championship. “I don’t think my mindset will necessarily change. It’s just for me to go out there knowing that birdies are out there, that I can make birdies every hole. But I can’t rush myself.
“I guess it is somewhat of a mindset, but I’m not forcing myself to make birdies. I want to let the birdies come and just go out there and play golf and hit some really good shots. I think you’ll get rewarded hitting good shots out here, because some shots and some holes and some pin locations might be a little more accessible with a wedge compared to a 5-iron out of some U.S. Open rough.
“Scores are definitely going to be low; conditions look great. I look forward to it.”