PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – It was the offseason of The Life of Collin Morikawa — reset and restock designed to launch Morikawa’s return to world dominance.
And then he woke up Saturday at the Sony Open with no time short.
“I came into this year feeling really good about myself,” Morikawa said. “You go out and play two rounds at Sony and I miss the cut and you realize, man do i have to redo everything you thought you were doing for the last two months?”
Professional golf can be extremely cruel that way. The difference between the best players in the world and the guys in their 40s as insurance agents is less than 10 strokes a week – and the difference between those at the top and bottom of many golf statistical categories is, on average, less than 1.5 shots per round.
Morikawa has lived on both sides of the totem pole. He arrived on the PGA Tour with a racket, winning a pair of major championships before his 25th birthday to announce himself as one of the game’s outstanding young talents. He’s spent the back half of his twenties immersed in golf’s innermost circle of hell: putting up trouble (to go along with a nasty cocktail of poor form and near-misses and swing changes and caddy changes).
However, on Saturday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Morikawa came alive. He shot a blistering 10-under 62, recording 11 birdies in just one bogey, to move into the final pair for Sunday’s final round with Akshay Bhatia. Sunday will mark Morikawa’s best shot at recording a signature victory in some time, perhaps since his narrow loss at the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational.
But before he gets there, he’ll have to overcome the challenges that have plagued the last few years of his golf life: those that arrive with a nail in his hand.
“Yeah. I think I might be (uncomfortable with my pitcher) for the rest of my career,” a remarkably candid Morikawa said Saturday afternoon. “It’s a comfort thing for me. I think I play a lot with my feel and I play with my gut a lot and unfortunately it varies a lot.”
Morikawa’s placement challenges have manifested themselves in particularly painful ways: After winning five times in less than two years to start his career, Morikawa has just one win in the last five years, which came in the relatively easy field at the Zozo Championship in Japan, and has seen other stars from his rookie class (notably Scottie Scheffler) top the sport.
In that time, the pitcher has fallen from a solid complement to Morikawa’s otherworldly ball-striking to a legitimate liability. He was listed 156 on tour in SG: Placement in 2025, the third time he has ranked worse than 100th on Tour in the same category since the winning drought began in 2022.
But putting is an art – and art is fickle. A few weeks, it can be enough to spoil an entire tournament – and THIS week, has barely moved the needle. On Saturday, Morikawa ranked near the bottom of the field in most putting statistics, hitting just 55 feet long all day, and he recorded one of his best rounds. YEAR.
The lesson, he said, came not from a change in technique or pitching ability, but from a change in mindset.
“(Mental coach Rick Sessinghaus) reminded me yesterday when I first came out and turned pro, like I honestly didn’t care about making cuts or top-20, I went out to win,” Morikawa said Saturday. “When he told me that yesterday, there was a change of mentality today. I wanted to go out and win, win the weekend, win the tournament.”
Morikawa certainly looked the part of a Pebble Beach winner on Saturday, displaying the same blistering iron game that made him such a formidable foe in the early days of his career. He also benefited from a third round played before a whipping southerly wind blew in, altering course conditions so much that the final group played the 18th hole in 36 minutes.
Good placement is part of winning, but good WEALTH it is also. The latter has been by Morikawa’s side as he prepares for Sunday’s final round in the final pair. The final group on Sunday at Pebble could quickly find themselves in a rock war, with conditions expected to deteriorate further through the afternoon. Only the strongest competitor will survive the chaos – be damned.
“I’m here to win. When you finish 30th, 15th, 3rd, at the end of the day like I want to win,” Morikawa said. “I’ve got to put that mindset into the beginning of the day, the beginning of the week, and now I think we’ve given ourselves at least a chance come tomorrow.”
