Two and a half hours on the putting green, trying to better understand the greens of the Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club. Two and a half hours, after having played the Pro-Am, alongside his caddie, Jonathan Jakovac, J. J. for friends, both trying to find a feeling that would give the player more confidence with the putter in his hands…
And they found something. Whatever they were looking for, they found it. “We found something and now we’re going to try to keep it…”, explained the player with a grin from ear to ear at the winner’s press conference of the ZOZO Championship. As if not to try to keep it…
Because, indeed, Collin would end up winning the tournament, ending a drought of victories that was already going on for 23 months, since he won the Dubai Final of the European circuit in November 2021. Ah, by the way, the Californian appeared at the end of the 72 holes as the second best player in the statistic of putts per greens in regulation…
This is one of the keys to his victory. Nothing that on the other hand surprises too much: anyone who follows the PGA Tour has been able to realize that Morikawa is usually up when he putts moderately well. But we’ll have to see how far what he and J. J. found on a Japanese putting green goes. The story is round, with Japan being the land of many of his ancestors…
But there is surely another deeper key to Morikawa’s triumphant return. As much as one tries to normalize it, a player like him, so successful since his breakthrough in the professional world, finds it hard to digest the fact of almost two years without a victory. So Collin and his team, after the last Fedex Cup playoffs, tried to “take two steps back and really understand the basis of what made me such a solid player, let’s say in the years 2019, 20 and 21. Sometimes you have to understand from a very basic level why your game works”, he explained. Or in other words: recover your true identity on the field, the one with which you feel safe and confident.
And what is that very basic level, that identity, in the case of Morikawa? The player and his team came to a very simple conclusion: Collin’s success had come mainly through the area in which he is really above the rest: the game with the irons. Sometimes, with the healthy intention of improving, a player loses the correct focus. It’s a very subtle issue, because in reality Morikawa has continued to be one of the best with the irons in his hands during these two years of drought, but the fact of trying to be a more complete player in other areas has led him to a point of discomfort, frustration, distrust… Just a little bit, but maybe enough to lose ground.
The player explained it in a graphic way. “When I missed the shot on hole 5 of the last round, par 3, J. J. told me: wow, you’ve broken the streak… And I had four consecutive birdies on par 3s, counting the previous round. I’ve felt the irons really well and that’s been my strength. Even in the worst moments, when I wasn’t hitting the ball very well, the irons proved to be the only thing I could trust.”
Two lucid hours on a putting green and a reset in search of that identity as a player in which one feels more comfortable… Sounds simple, but unfortunately it’s not.
