Tag: Collin Morikawa

Collin Morikawa discusses problem with golf’s TV coverage at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

‘I turn it on and I see three golf shots.”

Collin Morikawa had a disappointing week in San Diego, missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open after a tough second-round 75. But it hasn’t been all bad for the California native so far this year, as he tied for fifth at the season-opening The Sentry in Hawaii.

This week, he’s focused on the PGA Tour’s second signature event of 2024, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Morikawa has never played in the Crosby Clambake, but he did tie for 35th at the 2019 U.S. Open, an event hosted on the shores of the Monterey Peninsula.

“I’m excited. We flew up Sunday and I actually forgot how nice this piece of land is in the entire world,” the world No. 12 told media Tuesday during his pre-tournament press conference. “It’s gorgeous and we are very lucky to be here. It’s great to be back in northern California again. Look, just obviously kind of beginning of the season and want to get off to a good start. Didn’t play well last week, but like I said, it’s the early part and the game’s feeling good. Just got to find fairways and hopefully we can get put together four good rounds.”

2024 Farmers Insurance Open
Collin Morikawa hits his tee shot on the 10th hole during the first round of the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. (Photo: Ray Acevedo-USA TODAY Sports)

In between questions about his game and Cali connection, Morikawa was asked about how golf’s product on television could be improved.

His sentiment sounded a lot like thousands of fans on social media.

“Well, I mean, you first need to see more golf shots. Like that’s like — that’s like the No. 1 bullet point. How do I make it more interesting? That’s a great one. Hit better shots, stop hitting — stop playing so poorly.

“Look, golf isn’t — like golf’s not going to be as high speed, you know, body contact, people tackling. Like that’s just golf, right? But I think most fans understand that and we can’t — like I’m not going to go dance down the fairway or celebrate differently on a birdie putt on the sixth hole on Friday. But just seeing birdie putts and seeing more shots, that’s going to bring more viewers in because you can actually watch golf, right?

Pebble Pro-Am: Picks to win, odds | Sleeper picks

“So that’s already going to make it entertaining of itself. You can’t change what golf is. You can’t change the aspect of we’ve got 18 holes, you’ve got players to start on Thursday, you’re going to have two waves, all this stuff, you can’t change that, right But you can change the fact of seeing more golf shots and that’s a big part of actually saying I want to go watch golf, right?”

As other sports continue to gather larger audiences, Morikawa said that getting more eyeballs on golf is the key.

“But at this point right now where we’re at, it’s a lot of money that we’re playing for and I’m very thankful to be doing that, but I also see that we need more people to be interested in golf,” he said. “We need to make golf more intriguing to the viewers. How do we make broadcasting more approachable, how do we see more golf shots at the end of the day, right?

“I turn on golf on a Thursday if I play early, I turn it on and I see three golf shots and I question why. The reason why other sports are — people pay attention is because people see more, you can probably bet more. People like betting when you can watch it live, not watch it on ShotTracer.”

With its new status as a signature event, there are sure to be millions of eyeballs on Pebble Beach this weekend.

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These PGA Tour golfers are playing the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the first time

It doesn’t mean they’ve never played Pebble Beach Golf Links or the other golf courses in the rotation.

Scottie Scheffler? Nope. Collin Morikawa? Not him either. What about Hideki Matsuyama? Negative.

Believe it or not, those three are among the 10 golfers in the field of 80 at the second signature event of 2024, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, who have never played the event. That doesn’t mean thoese golfers have never played Pebble Beach Golf Links or the other golf courses in the rotation, but they will be making their maiden voyage in this particular tournament.

The Pro-Am being elevated to a signature event in 2024 is certainly one factor. A year ago, the tournament had a $9 purse and a $1.62 million first-place prize. Those numbers are now $20 million and $3.6 million, certainly enough to spark the interest of those who never made their way to the Monterey Peninsula in January.

Here’s a closer look at the golfers making their first appearance in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Collin Morikawa, Jason Day lead notable players to miss 2024 Farmers Insurance Open cut at Torrey Pines

Check out the list of big names who are heading home (or to Pebble Beach) earlier than expected.

SAN DIEGO — Eight of the top 20 players in the Official World Golf Ranking made the trip to this week’s PGA Tour stop along the California coast, and five made the 36-hole cut, the only time this season there will be a Thursday cut.

While most of the top-ranked players in the field earned tee times for the South Course at Torrey Pines on Friday and Saturday, a handful of well-known players will be heading home (or up the road to Pebble Beach) earlier than planned from the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open.

In all, 79 players made the cut, leading to threesomes going off both the 1st and 10th tee.

Here are the notable PGA Tour players (and southern California club professionals) who are heading home early after missing the cut – which came in at 3 under – at Torrey Pines.

FARMERS: Friday tee times | Photos | Euros atop leaderboard

Max Homa’s title defense, low scores and the return of Michael Block lead 2024 Farmers Insurance Open Wednesday highlights

Calm conditions made Torrey Pines ripe for the picking Wednesday, especially the North Course.

SAN DIEGO — Record rainfall caused flooding and power outages across the county in the days leading up to the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open, which made for a soggy start to the PGA Tour’s annual trip to Torrey Pines.

A whopping 107 of the 156 players in the field were even par or better on a calm Wednesday at the 36-hole muni gem along the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean (No. 39 in Golfweek’s Best public courses list). And yes, the often gettable North Course produced significantly more birdies than the tricky South Course.

Kevin Yu leads the way after a bogey-free, 8-under 64, but the 25-year-old’s birdie fest wasn’t the only notable story from the first round. From a title defense in the making to signature event bubble watch and another sponsor exemption in the mix, here’s what you need to know about Wednesday at the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open.

Sahith Theegala’s birdie binge, Collin Morikawa’s emotional opening tee shot among 5 things to know from first round of The Sentry

Catch up on the action here.

Sahith Theegala is back for the second time at The Sentry. One year after he shot 10 under for 72 holes, he opened with 10 birdies on Thursday and shot 9-under 64 at Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course to take a one-stroke lead over a bunched-up leaderboard on a low-scoring day thanks to calm conditions.

“I saw something about first timers not doing great here and I believe it,” he said.

Theegala, 26, proved to be a quick learner. He recorded the most birdies in a PGA Tour round in what was his 250th career round on Tour, including six in a row to start his back nine. Asked to name his favorite of the bunch, he picked the one at No. 12, saying, “Had a really gnarly 8- or 9-footer that I didn’t know which way it was going to break, grain was going all over the place. I just aimed it dead center and tried to hit it hard and hearted that putt, and that settled me down a little bit more.”

Theegala, who notched his first Tour title at the Fortinet Championship in September, has the lead after 18 holes for the second time in his career over a handful of players.

The scoring average was almost 4-under as the wind laid down.

Here’s four more things to know about the first round of The Sentry.

The Sentry: Photos | Friday tee times, how to watch

The Sentry 2024 odds, course history and picks to win

The PGA Tour is back!

Welcome to 2024, folks. And to start the new year, the PGA Tour is in Hawaii for the season’s first signature event, The Sentry.

The Plantation Course at Kapalua in Maui will once again play host, while the defending champion is not in the 59-man field.

Jon Rahm came from behind to defeat Collin Morikawa last year, but cannot defend his title thanks to his move to LIV Golf.

Some of the stars actually in the field include world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa, Xander Schauffele, Morikawa and Jordan Spieth.

Two notable names not teeing it up at the Plantation Course, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas.

Reminder, there is no cut this week.

Golf course

Plantation Course at Kapalua | Par 73 | 7,596 yards

2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions
Course scenics during practice prior to the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club on January 02, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Course history

Betting preview

2023 TaylorMade Christmas Card: Mac Daddy Santa returns and a look back

Mac Daddy Santa is back.

‘Tis the season for long-standing traditions and reflecting on days gone by, but TaylorMade’s new tradition of dropping a holiday card on social media featuring its star-studded tour staff got social media buzzing once again on Tuesday.

This tradition started in 2019, when, seemingly out of nowhere, the brand sent actual holiday cards in the mail that featured Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and other stars wearing Christmas-themed pajamas. It continued in 2020, digitally, and has become something that golf lovers look foward to seeing every December.

On Tuesday, the 2023 holiday card dropped and it adds a Tiger Woods tradition twist. In 2016, the 15-time major winner posted a bare-chested photo of himself as Mac Daddy Santa, a tradition his children — Sam and Charlie — love.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOVXpgVgxS6/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

This year, Mac Daddy Santa is overseeing toymaker elves that include Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Brooke Henderson, Collin Morikawa, Charley Hull and Nelly Korda.

Why Matt Fitzpatrick’s curiosity about an obscure local model rule led to Collin Morikawa’s 2-stroke penalty

“It’s nothing personal.”

NASSAU, Bahamas — Collin Morikawa got docked two strokes on Sunday morning in one of the more bizarre rulings on the PGA Tour in a long time – which is saying something.

If you’re unfamiliar with this week’s installment of “the Rules of Golf can be wacky,” you can read the backstory about why Morikawa was assessed two strokes for violating local model rule G-11, which restricts the use of green-reading material, on the fourth hole of the third round of the Hero World Challenge here. But the part of the story that couldn’t be told until players talked after the round was how the violation was reported in the first place.  And how did Morikawa and his caddie, JJ Jakovac, take the news?

In regards to the first question, chief referee Stephen Cox of the PGA Tour did confirm that Matt Fitzpatrick was responsible for bringing the subject to light. One rush to judgment was that the Englishman had ratted out Morikawa but that isn’t the case. Rather, he was simply looking for confirmation of a rule, which went into effect in 2022, when the USGA and R&A banned the green-reading books that took much of the skill out of reading a putt.

On the fourth green on Saturday, Fitzpatrick heard Morikawa ask his caddie about the break and witnessed Jakovac refer to his yardage book for the answer.

“I have wanted to use AimPoint earlier this year,” Fitzpatrick explained on Sunday after finishing T-4. “I spoke to my putting coach, Phil Kenyon, about it. He told me that he was pretty certain I can’t write the numbers down or use the AimPoint numbers. So, you know, I didn’t do it. And then obviously yesterday it happened and I asked Coxy just to clarify what the situation was. I asked the question and he was like, ‘Well, now you’ve asked the question, I need you to tell me what’s going on.’ That was it.

“Listen, it’s nothing personal. Whether it was Tiger or whoever, it’s just I wanted to know because I would have used it earlier this year.”

Fitzpatrick never broached the subject directly with Morikawa and, in fact, he forgot about it after the round. He didn’t text Cox until later that evening.

“It wasn’t until I was back in the house like where I was staying and someone was talking about putting or something like that. I was like, oh, [shoot], like I have that question,” Fitzpatrick recalled.

Morikawa cleared up another mystery in all of this: how could he be so sure that Jakovac only violated the rule that one time on the third hole on Saturday?

“I promise you it only did happen on the fourth hole because he read a putt wrong on the first hole with his feet and I fired him in the first round from reading my putts,” Morikawa explained.

Morikawa expressed no problem with Fitzpatrick bringing the potential violation to light, noting, “He did what any competitor should do.”

Morikawa also sided with his caddie, who he said had asked a different rules official if measuring the slope on the green with a level device was legal – which it is – but a player and/or caddie can’t write those figures down in his yardage book.

“He had asked other officials, he had asked other caddies and it sounded as if other people were doing this. And when you ask an official something, you assume it’s right,” Morikawa said. “Well, apparently if they tell you something wrong one day in a different tournament does not carry on, and I understand that, we made the mistake.”

But Morikawa wondered: “Why are there gray areas? There shouldn’t be gray areas in the rules, right? That’s what rules are for.”

Morikawa expressed some frustration at the process of how he was alerted to the possible infraction. Cox initially texted Jakovac in the morning a few hours before Morikawa’s tee time. Jakovac didn’t say anything to Morikawa at first because he didn’t want to concern him if there wasn’t any issue. Cox sent a second text with about 45 minutes left in Morikawa’s warmup calling for a meeting in the locker room.

“We go there and we’re looking for him and he’s nowhere to be found,” Morikawa said.

Cox is nothing if not punctual and was doing his due diligence to make sure he had his ducks in a row but Morikawa was equally frustrated with the process as he was with the ruling.

“Just give it to me, right?” Morikawa said. “If I broke the rules, I broke the rules and that’s on me, I have to take it.”

A two-stroke penalty turned his third-round score from 70 into a 72. Even before he teed off, his tall task at catching leader and eventual champion Scottie Scheffler grew from six back to eight back. It’s a mistake he and Jakovac likely will never make again.

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Collin Morikawa hit with 2-stroke penalty for ‘unwittingly’ violating Model Local Rule at 2023 Hero World Challenge

Morikawa’s third-round score at the fourth hole was changed to a triple-bogey 7.

NASSAU, Bahamas – Collin Morikawa was assessed a two-shot penalty for violating local model rule G-11, which restricts the use of green-reading material, on the fourth hole of the third round of the 2023 Hero World Challenge.

The rules committee was alerted to a potential rule violation late Saturday night after a question was posed by a player in the field. When asked if it was Morikawa’s playing partner during the third round, Matt Fitzpatrick, who brought the potential rule violation into question, chief referee Stephen Cox of the PGA Tour confirmed that was the case.

The local model rule was added in 2022 to protect the fundamental skill of reading greens. It’s not the first time a Tour pro has violated the rule.

Cox met with JJ Jakovac, Morikawa’s caddie, about two hours before their 12:03 p.m. final-round tee time. After reviewing his yardage book, it became clear that Jakovac had created a putting chart, which isn’t a violation of the rules in itself, but the manner of obtaining the information is key to the ruling. Jakovac used a level on the practice putting green and wrote a note directly into his yardage book and used it for assessing the read on the fourth hole during Saturday’s third round.

“Fortunately, that was the only time that a player or caddie used that chart or formula and on that basis the breach remained two strokes,” Cox said.

“This is a very complicated issue,” Cox added. “We were very specific in the fact that these handwritten notes needed to be obtained through traditional methods to protect the fundamental skill of reading greens through our sport and that’s the foundation of why we put the model local rule in place. In this situation, again, unwittingly, the player used a level to determine degrees of slope on the practice putting green, which in itself, isolated, is not a breach, but what that player did was formulated a chart and transferred that into his book.”

Had Jakovac devised a chart using his feet and estimated the slope or simply retained the information obtained from the measuring devise to memory rather than as a handwritten note, there would have been no penalty.

Morikawa was informed of the penalty on the range about 10-15 minutes before his tee time by Cox. When asked to describe Morikawa’s response, Cox said, “It went very similar to any other conversation that results in a penalty. He was very frustrated. It’s a very complicated rule.”

As a result, Morikawa’s third-round score at the fourth hole was changed to a triple-bogey 7, giving him an even-par 72.

“They understood the rule was broken but anytime the rules penalize a player there is inevitable pushback and frustration and that was shared by both player and caddie, which is human nature,” Cox told NBC Sports.

“At the end of the day we made the mistake and it’s on us. Thankfully it only happened that one time,” Morikawa said after his round Sunday.

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Collin Morikawa shakes things up, parts ways with longtime coach

“I had to do it, I just felt like it was time to make a change at some point.”

NASSAU, Bahamas – When Collin Morikawa won the Zozo Championship in Japan last month, he was coy about the fixes to his putting stroke that helped him shoot a final-round 63 and coast to a six-stroke win, snapping a two-year streak without a victory. It turns out he also buried the lede.

“Right before the Ryder Cup, I let go of my long-time coach, Rick Sessinghaus for, we’ve been working for just over 18 years, which wasn’t easy,” Morikawa shared for the first time publicly Tuesday during a press conference ahead of the 2023 Hero World Challenge, a 20-man unofficial event held at the Albany Club. “He’s more than just a coach, he’s one of my really good friends. He’s someone I’ve always looked up to, someone that’s been there for every step of my life essentially, not just in golf but just kind of living life, right?

“It wasn’t easy, and sometimes things happen like that. But 18 years is a long time. Not many relationships that I can say with a lot of people that I’ve had relationships for 18 years, and real relationships where I’m talking to them every week, right? So that wasn’t easy at all.”

After Morikawa won the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park, the PGA of America was quick to celebrate the special bond as part of an advertising campaign. Sessinghaus is a longtime teacher in Southern California and heads up the FlowCode Golf Academy in Burbank. He began working with Morikawa at age 8.

“I was on the right side of the driving range at Scholl Canyon Golf Course when his dad walked over to me and asked if I’d work with his son,” Sessinghaus once told Golfweek. “Collin was with him and he had this big smile on his face and his cute little golf bag. And after two swings, I said, ‘You bet I will work with him.’”

But Morikawa also noted it was time.

“I had to do it, I just felt like it was time to make a change at some point. What I saw kind of over the past two years wasn’t to my expectations and standards and goals what I wanted,” he said.

Morikawa, 26, won two majors and reached No. 2 in the world in short order but he struggled to produce his once reliable fade that allowed him to take the left side of the course out of play. He began working with short-game coach Stephen Sweeney late last year to remedy shortcomings in his putting and chipping and it paid quick dividends.

He raced out to a big lead at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in January but couldn’t finish the deal as Jon Rahm blew past him with a 63 on Sunday. He also lost a playoff to Rickie Fowler at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in July. Despite going 27 months without a win, he finished in the top 30 this season in the FedEx Cup and represented Team USA in the Ryder Cup in September.

Morikawa said he began working with noted instructor Mark Blackburn, the 2020 PGA of America Coach of the Year, whose stable includes Max Homa and Justin Rose, before the win at the Zozo.

“Obviously, there’s no better way to start, but this is just the tip of the iceberg for us to kind of dig in and really know what we’re going to do,” Morikawa said.

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