Collin Morikawa arrived at Aronimink with an unexpected and deeply human confession. One of the purest and most precise players in world golf admitted he is facing the PGA Championship still affected by back problems that are forcing him to play almost against himself. “I wish I were one hundred per cent. My body doesn’t feel bad, but it’s uncomfortable. And there’s a confidence factor I’m dealing with. I’d never had to go through something like this”, he admitted
The American explained that the hardest part is not so much the pain as the feeling of not fully trusting your own body. “It’s a very strange feeling not to trust your body and yet know that everything is going to be fine. I wouldn’t wish anyone to have to deal with that”, he said
However, far from dramatizing, Morikawa hinted at a different maturity, perhaps calmer and closer to acceptance. A philosophy he discovered at the Masters, where he played physically limited but still managed to compete. “At Augusta I completely accepted that I was going to hit bad shots. And that is very hard to do, even in life”, he explained
That is probably the big story of his week: the struggle between the perfectionist obsessed with control and the player who is learning to live with uncertainty: “It’s a small mental shift. You can’t force yourself to think that everything will be fine. It’s a reaction, a way of accepting whatever comes”
Morikawa even recalled two of the greatest wins of his career, the PGA Championship in 2020 at Harding Park and The Open at Royal St George’s, to dismantle the idea that the perfect champion never fails. “In the final rounds of both tournaments I hit terrible shots. At Harding Park I sent a wedge into the bunker from the middle of the fairway at the first hole on Sunday… and I was able to accept it”, he explained
That capacity for acceptance is precisely what he is now trying to recover while he battles with his back. “There are many different ways to play golf. Obviously you want to be healthy and go out there just looking at the target and hitting the target, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of the tournament”, Collin detailed
Along that path his whole team has been crucial. From his physiotherapists to Rick Sessinghaus, his sports psychologist, and his caddie, Mark Urbanek, to whom he dedicated one of the most striking anecdotes from the press conference: “At Augusta he did things that made no sense, like handing me the water bottle to stop me stooping down one more time. It seems ridiculous, but if that prevented a niggle, he did it”
Morikawa also spoke naturally about how distant that PGA Championship won in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic already feels. “It feels like it was ages ago. You don’t forget that you can do it again, but that only motivates you more to try to win another”, he acknowledged
The American knows perfectly well how modern golf works. He sees Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele stringing together victories and understands that when everything flows it seems simple: “In 2020 and 2021 golf was easy for me. But then life comes along and you have to learn to deal with other things”
Now, at Aronimink, the challenge is different. It’s no longer just about hitting big irons or making impossible putts. It’s about living with the pain, accepting the chaos and continuing to believe that even so he can win a major. And perhaps there, precisely there, lies the real growth of Collin Morikawa.
