There is no golfer worth their salt who doesn’t fulfil a dream when playing at Pebble Beach. Imagine what it must be like to win there. Collin Morikawa achieved it this Sunday, after three years of drought and just as he awaits the birth of his first child. It’s logical that the man was a bundle of nerves and a whirlwind of emotions even after lifting the trophy. In fact, a good part of his reflections to journalists minutes after winning were chaotic and even incoherent at times. He was exuding excitement.
Morikawa didn’t expect to win this week. It wasn’t something that had been brewing slowly, those things a player starts noticing, that constant improvement, getting closer, taking the lead, seeing oneself in a stellar match… Nothing. It was something that came almost overnight. In fact, when he missed the cut at the Sony Open in the first tournament of the season, he questioned everything he had done in pre-season. “What have I done? Have I wasted two and a half months of my life?” he asked himself alongside his team.
Things went somewhat better for him last week at the Phoenix Open, although it wasn’t anything to write home about. He finished in 54th place, far from his expectations. He wasn’t in his best mental state, no matter how much his team repeated that they were on the right track and he made an effort to believe it. To this mediocre start of the year, we must add that he was coming from the worst moment of his career, as he himself defined the end of 2025.
So, what could have changed in just a few hours to now have that ear-to-ear smile on his face and a trophy as prestigious as Pebble Beach’s under his arm? Well, the reality is not much, beyond a couple of relevant technical details. The first has to do with the putter and the story he already told on Saturday when he signed the amazing scorecard of 62 strokes, that he had taken it from Kurt Kitayama after playing a practice round with him on Friday before the Phoenix Open.
“We were actually playing with Kurt, Min Woo Lee, and Kurt’s brother. The putter was carried by Kurt’s brother, although it belonged to him. I started the day without sinking anything. I was using the same one with which Nelly Korda won a week before, but it wasn’t working for me. I started trying Kurt’s brother’s putter and the sensations were very good from the start. I ended up putting the whole round with that same club and on Monday and Tuesday in Phoenix, I didn’t leave the hotel room and was putting all the time… Maybe that’s why it didn’t go very well for me there,” he explains.
That said, it doesn’t seem like the putter has changed his life. Three of the four days he lost strokes to the rest of the players and the only day he gained something, very little, was Saturday when he shot 62. He finished 44th in this statistic. Nothing particularly noteworthy. This leads us directly to the next technical key, this one much more brilliant…
It happened on the Monday before the tournament. Morikawa was hitting balls on the practice range and the sensations, while not bad, weren’t good. Then, the people from TaylorMade, his brand, suggested he try a ball with less spin. The change was quite radical from the start. “It had been a long time since I had the distance control I felt this week and it’s largely because of the ball. I have to thank them for that suggestion. Even despite the wind, I was very comfortable.”
Here the numbers do support those sensations. Morikawa was by far the best in the tournament in shots to the green. He gained almost ten strokes in this area compared to the tournament average. It was precisely in this area, his specialty, where he recalled his best version. The ball he used is the TP5x from TaylorMade.
Finally, he believes that the physical work he did in pre-season, which allowed him to gain about four and a half kilos, was a success. Of course, after missing the cut at the Sony Open, he wasn’t very happy with this matter. You know things are seen very differently when the results come, no matter how much you don’t want to think about it. “I’ve decided I’m going to enjoy the victories more. I don’t think I did as I should have when I won the two Majors so early. I need to smile more. Before, I would win and only think about the next tournament,” he explains. He then assures: “The goal this year is to win several times,” despite coming from a three-year drought. Hence, chaotic but absolutely understandable.
