The tone of press conferences varies at every Masters tournament, but none more so than on Sundays. The build-up to the final round is more often than not a stream of optimism that falters a little here and there as the players get closer to the competition. But the moment the buzzer sounds, when there are no more holes to play, the reasons for optimism are drowned out by the reality of a no-win placement.
Take Cam Young, for example, who stuck around in neutral on Sunday and continued to answer questions about what he would do differently with … well, not much. He wouldn’t change at all. Or we take Scottie Scheffler, who lost by one and was to blame for Friday’s first instinct to play in the conditions he didn’t think they were fair to the whole field.
For obvious reasons, Rory McIlroy is beyond happy as the defending championbut this list of unhappy players will always beat the list of happy pros. Mild-mannered Tommy Fleetwood called his weekend goal “terrible” and his short game “terrible”. Shane Lowry didn’t bother talking about his last round of 80. Jacob Bridgeman began his press conference by expressing how frustrated he was.
All this brings us to a surprising admission from the short list of happy boys. Consider Collin Morikawa. But not just his Masters week – let’s think about his 2026 season.
After a slow start, he broke through with a win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Amadding some of the top 10s to the Signature Events that followed. He was playing “Collin Golf,” as he likes to call it. Power fades off the tee and iron shots. That’s where you want to be at the top of the Masters, and Morikawa was on everyone’s short list of Masters favorites — until he limped off the opening morning of The Players Championship with a bad back.
He didn’t have any extra starts before the Masters and showed up bravely in the practice rounds. He was not going full speed in the driving range and was restricting the driver’s total movements. it woke up more nervous for Thursday’s opening round than any he could remember. His back was so tight that he needed his legs to support his body more than ever – and he didn’t feel like he could trust them.
But then he found something. Something. A move that worked with his arms more than his core and a mental mindset that allowed him to push forward. He shot 74 in his opening round, but you could tell he was stiff. His swing was something less than his normal, fluid and powerful self. But after a 69-birdie Friday, he was … satisfied.
“Trust me,” he said after making the cut, “the last two days were some of the best golf. Regardless of what I would have shot, but really, today was probably the best golf I could have played.”
Morikawa was never really on the huntas they say, on the weekend in Augusta National. But it also never exploded. The back injury never let him down. Only after a poor swing on the 2nd hole in the final round did he card anything worse than a bogey. He was … at sea. And loving the grind. He couldn’t go for the par 5 in two. I couldn’t manage much on the speed of the ball. But he hit 73% of his fairways and 67% of the greens – both better than the field average. And then, after a flurry of four straight birdies on the last nine holes, he found himself in the top 10.
“It blew away any expectations I had for the week,” Morikawa said late Sunday night. “Honestly, for me it was just surviving each day — wake up, do the preparation I need to do, and go and get on (hole) 1. I didn’t know how uncomfortable it was going to be, but we managed to get through the 18th and the 72nd.”
The golf he played was definitely not Collin Golf, but it seemed to work. He missed shots on the field off the tee, which would be anomalous for him and his famously accurate game. However, he won a lot of pretty shots, which will always mask a lot of what’s going on underneath. He finished third for the week in Strokes Gained: Putting, and the best of anyone who made the cut. He just stayed in the fight and learned something along the way.
“It’s going to be one of the best tournaments ever,” Morikawa said. “I’ll remember that for a lot of reasons, but more than that being strong minded, to be able to go out there and convince yourself that everything is going to be okay.”
