Weekly Recap: Morikawa Makes a Move

Collin Morikawa's red shirt never arrived. His homage to Tiger Woods was foiled.

Or was it?

Morikawa paid tribute to his childhood idol in a more meaningful way, doing his best Woods impersonation by converting a 54-hole lead into a comfortable three-stroke win over all the best golfers in the world at the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession.

Many in the field chose to wear red shirts and black pants -- Tiger's standard final-round look -- to honor Woods, who was seriously injured in an auto accident earlier in the week.
 
Morikawa took things one step further just moments after sinking one final, Tiger-like 10-foot par putt to secure the title, offering a heartfelt "Thank you" to Woods in his post-victory interview on the course. It was a profound moment from a 24-year-old, in effect acknowledging that everything there is in golf today, everything that every golfer has -- and many of them have enormous wealth -- is because of Woods.

"Tiger means everything to me," Morikawa, wearing a gray Adidas shirt, told NBC's Steve Sands. "And yes, he had the crash and thankfully he's all right and hopefully he has a quick and great recovery, but I don't think we say thank you enough. So I want to say thank you to Tiger, because sometimes you lose people too early. Kobe [Bryant]...I lost my grandpa about a month ago. And you don't get to say thank you enough. So thank you, guys."

To be able to speak so eloquently in the immediate aftermath of such a big career moment once again showed that Morikawa is no ordinary 24-year-old -- on the golf course and off.

The connections between Morikawa and Woods are growing.

Last year, when Morikawa kept adding to his cut streak to begin his career and neared the 25 straight reached by Woods, we said here that it would be in his best interest to come up short, that comparisons to Woods could prove overwhelming for a young player. While Morikawa did fall three cuts shy of Woods, he continues to do Tiger-like things.

He is now one of only two golfers to ever win a major and World Golf Championship event before turning 25. Of course, the other is Woods. To be fair to Jack Nicklaus and others, the WGCs have been around only since 1999, but it's still no small feat. Morikawa currently has the most PGA Tour wins of any golfer under 25, and he also became the seventh since 1945 with at least four wins and a major before turning 25. Woods is one of them, and this time Nicklaus qualifies, along with Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Jerry Pate.

Such a dominant victory has to be considered at least a bit of a surprise, as Morikawa had not been at his best coming into the week. He had already missed two cuts in eight starts -- we know how rare that is for him -- and notched only three top-25s.

At the heart of the issue was a common issue among young pro golfers: putting. Morikawa was ranked a hideous 213th in Strokes Gained: Putting and was dead last in the field last week at Riviera, where he finished in a tie for 43rd. Even though he was his usual elite self in SG: Approach -- he's third on Tour this season -- and Tee-to-Green -- he ranks sixth -- when you're putting is that bad, it's hard to even contend, much less win.

Before this psat week, Morikawa got some putting tips from Mark O'Meara, who many years ago took a young Tiger under his wing. He switched to a claw-like grip, though he said O'Meara calls it the "saw." Regardless, he ranked 10th in the field in putting for the week, more than good enough considering the rest of his laser-like game was still front and center. He ranked, ho-hum, first in Approach and first in Tee-to-Green. If Morikawa suddenly has discovered the key to putting, well, then it just won't be a very fair fight going forward.

Morikawa is now back up to fourth in the world, matching his career best. He's now thisclose to No. 3 Justin Thomas, and No. 2 Jon Rahm is within range. Morikawa is skipping Bay Hill, but he will surely be at TPC Sawgrass in two weeks.

Would anyone be surprised if he wins THE PLAYERS Championship and adds another one of those youngest-since-Tiger Woods accolades?

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Viktor Hovland
Hovland is seven months younger than Morikawa. He's not as accomplished, but that's only because Morikawa has been otherworldly. Together, they make a pretty good advertisement about the future of golf (with Sungjae Im right there, too). Hovland tied for second at the Workday, giving him a sixth top-6 in his past seven starts. He had been playing far better than Morikawa coming in. Hovland ranked 26th in the field in putting, also showing promise for one of his weaknesses.

Brooks Koepka
Koepka now has a win and a co-runner-up in his past three starts. That's what we call "back," Jordan Spieth fans. Koepka was actually second in the field in putting and, if he can rediscover what has been a wayward putting stroke, then he's going to be in the conversation later this season for Major No. 5.

Billy Horschel
Horschel has had some good finishes this season, but something was not right – he was ranked nearly 200th in SG: Approach. At the Workday, he was 21st, along with third in Putting and eighth in Tee-to-Green. Now that's more like Horschel. Whether he keeps it up, we shall see. … Wanted to point out a subtle yet very classy gesture from Horschel on the final hole on Sunday. He had a knee-knocking five-footer for par, a vitally important putt since it meant a tie for second or a tie for fourth. He could have let Morikawa go first with a longer 10-footer so he had a chance to compose himself. Instead, you could see on TV how Horschel told Morikawa he would go first, so "you can have your moment." Morikawa got his moment – after Horschel drilled that testy putt.

Scottie Scheffler
A case could be made to add Scheffler to this young trio of Morikawa, Hovland and Im. He's also only 24 though he will be the first to 25. He finished fifth at the Workday, giving him a second top-10 in three starts and his sixth top-20 of the season. Like with the other young guys, putting is the one trouble spot. Scheffler ranked 13th on the week. He'll have to do more of that to get his first win.

Louis Oosthuizen
Is there any quieter player in the top 25 of the OWGR, one who delivers so often in big tournaments? Oosthuizen tied for sixth, adding to these recent finishes in 2020: top-25 at the Masters, solo third at the U.S. Open and T6 at the WGC-FedEx. In 2019, he was top-10 at the U.S. Open and top-25 at two WGCs.

Jason Kokrak
Keeping with the theme of guys who are iron machines but can't putt, Kokrak tied for ninth after finishing ninth in the field in SG: Putting. He has ranked outside the top-100 in putting the past six seasons but suddenly is ninth in 2020-21. That's quite a turnaround. If Kokrak could continue, who knows how high he can climb in the world rankings?

Cameron Smith
Smith shot himself out of the tournament on Saturday with, count 'em, five water balls en route to a 5-over 77. Instead of mailing it in on Sunday, he improved by 10 shots and tied for 11th. It's stuff like that, stuff that's not in the "box score," that shows you the mettle of a player.

Aaron Rai
You had to go all the way to 18th on the leaderboard to find the first non-PGA Tour player. Not a good showing by the internationals, by any metric. Rai is a 25-year-old Englishman now ranked 70th in the world. He won the Scottish Open last summer in a playoff over Tommy Fleetwood. He also was in what is now the WGC-FedEx in 2019 at tied for 12th.

Lanto Griffin
Priced at a mere $6,700 on DraftKings, Griffin continues to show he deserves a seat at the table in these big events. He tied for 22nd, moving back into the top-50 in the world rankings.

Min Woo Lee
The Aussie is only 22, and he got into the field based on his standing on the Australasian Tour. But he's also on the European Tour, and he missed his five most recent cuts there, then for good measure trunk-slammed at Pebble Beach a few weeks back. But he impressively tied for 28th in his first foray into big-time golf. It was Lee's first WGC and he's never been in a major. Remember, he's only 22.

Trevor Simsby
Simsby was the lowest-ranked golfer in the field at No. 416. He's a 28-year-old Californian playing in Asia. He tied for 37th at the Workday to move to 368th in the world.

Tommy Fleetwood
Fleetwood is ranked 21st in the world. Mathematicians are baffled. He tied for 44th at the Workday, continuing a trend of poor performances in the States while padding his world-ranking points in Europe. Fleetwood's tie for 19th at the Masters is his only top-25 on the PGA Tour in almost a year. Granted, if you're gonna do it only once, that's probably the best place to do it.
 
Justin Rose
Rose has not been able to hang onto his ranking as Fleetwood has. He's now 36th in the OWGR after tying for 54th at the Workday. He was runner-up to Dustin Johnson a few weeks back in Saudi Arabia, but that was only his third worldwide top-10 in the past year, a span that coincides with him turning 40.

Matthew Wolff
It's hard to tell what's wrong with Wolff – but something is wrong. He withdrew after a first-round 83, his second WD in four starts. The other one was related to a hand injury, but no reason was given this time. Since back-to-back runners-up at the U.S. Open and Shriners last September, Wolff has not finished so much as in the top-35 in any of eight tournaments.
 

Puerto Rico Open

Branden Grace 
Grace notched his second Tour victory and first since the 2016 RBC Heritage. After a largely terrible 2019 and 2020, at least on the PGA Tour, Grace had been showing signs of a reversal even before winning the opposite-field event. He was T20 last week in the loaded field at Riviera and was 34th at Pebble Beach. Before Riviera, the 32-year-old Grace hadn't had a top-25 in eight months.

Phil Mickelson
Mickelson's bid for a third straight win to start his Champions Tour career fizzled from the get-go. He hit a ball out of bounds in the first round and again in the second and finished in a tie for 20th at the Cologuard Classic in Tucson, Ariz., 11 shots behind winner Kevin Sutherland. Mickelson can't be expected to win every Champions Tour event, but if he's that far back, how can he expected to compete on the PGA Tour? (Answer: He can't.) He's now on the brink of falling out of the top 100 of the OWGR, at 98th, something that hasn't happened in almost three decades. In two weeks, Mickelson will be in the field at THE PLAYERS Championship.