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FORT WORTH, Texas — The general sports world might not know much about Collin Morikawa, but those in the golf world have been whispering about how the former Cal star is quickly becoming the best iron striker on Tour.
Sunday’s playoff loss to Daniel Berger at the Charles Schwab Challenge was painful for the 23-year-old phenom, but it’s a tiny setback in what looks like it could be a long and productive career.
Morikawa missed a couple short putts — one on No. 18 and another on the first playoff hole — but overall he thinks his game has been sound. And an opening-round 64 and three subsequent rounds of 67 would seem to offer support to that argument.
“Yeah, it felt good, obviously coming after all this quarantine, I got some good practice in, and I thought I picked up really well from where I left off,” he said. “I thought I was trending in the right direction after Bay Hill, after the Players ended really quick, and I just had to remember everything from there. I thought I brought that this week. I thought my putting was really good.
“Really, I hit two bad putts this week. One came obviously on the playoff, and the other one came on hole 14, I believe — hole 12. But overall the game feels good.”
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Here’s a stat that deserves mentioning in each story with his name: Morikawa has started his professional PGA Tour career by making his first 21 cuts. The only player with a higher number in the last three decades is Tiger Woods, who made his first 25.
Although Morikawa already has a Tour win under his belt, he came to Fort Worth just 44th in the Official World Golf Rankings, although he was No. 5 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings. This performance only helped to solidify his standing as one of the best young players, if not the best young player in the world.
And while this week marked Morikawa’s debut at Colonial as a pro, he’s played here before and it’s a course that certainly suits his game.
“I thought the course fit me really well. It’s a ball striker’s course, had to hit it in the fairway, and it was crazy because it just didn’t seem like I was hitting as many fairways as I normally do, which is something I’m going to have to work on the next week,” he said. “But overall I think it fits my game really well. You’ve got to put it in the fairway, and from there it’s an approach shot course. Putting was working, short game was working this week, so a lot of positives to take, especially after this three-month break into the next few weeks.”
There’s still plenty to work on, but Morikawa knows he’s got the skillset to be successful at this level. His win at the Barracuda Open last summer in Lake Tahoe proved his chops, and he keeps improving as new challenges are presented. This week, he finished third in stroked gained tee to green and eighth in strokes gained total.
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He’s fourth for the 2020 season in strokes gained approaching the green, falling one spot behind World No. 1 Rory McIlory.
And Morikawa knows he’s been through some groundbreaking times, including the first tournament back after a pandemic. Even though he’s still in the early stages of his career, the significance wasn’t lost on the youngster.
“Obviously being one of the first sports back, live sports and everything, not having fans, I think we have a responsibility on our shoulders to really make sure we do everything, follow the rules, follow the guidelines,” Morikawa said. “For the most part, I think we all did pretty well. We’re going to have to watch what we do because at the end of the day, I wanted to just give myself a hug, give my caddie a hug, just the entire week. It was a grind all week.
“It’s good to be back. I think we’re really happy to be back. But yeah, it’s going to be something I always remember because who knows the next time we’re going to have three months off.”
As for bouncing back from the playoff loss? His coach from Cal put it best via Twitter:
He’ll bounce back. He always does.
— Walter Chun (@CoachWalterC) June 14, 2020
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