Morikawa’s eagle grabs PGA crown
SAN FRANCISCO — The shot will be remembered as one of the best under pressure that hardly anyone was there to see in person. It made Collin Morikawa a major golf champion Sunday in a thrilla-minute PGA Championship that not many will forget.
Morikawa used his driver on the 294-yard 16th hole to hit a shot that was perfect in flight and even better when it landed, with the ball hopping onto the green and rolling to seven feet away from the cup for an eagle that all but clinched victory on a most quiet Sunday afternoon at TPC Harding Park.
In the first major tournament without spectators, two months after the PGA Tour returned to competition amid the coronavirus pandemic, the 23-year-old Californian finished with a bang.
“I was hoping for a really good bounce and got it,” he said. “I hit a really good putt, and now we’re here.”
He closed with a 6-under-par 64, the lowest final round by a PGA Championship winner in 25 years, to finish at 13-under 267 and secure a two-shot victory over Paul Casey (66) and Dustin Johnson (68), two of 10 players who had a chance on the back nine.
Morikawa was among seven players tied for the lead, as wild as any Sunday in a major. He moved to the top of the board when he chipped in for birdie from 40 feet short of the 14th green, then delivered the knockout with one swing along the shores of Lake Merced.
The pandemic that moved the PGA Championship from May to August was allowed to be played in San Francisco only if spectators were not present. There was one person who won’t forget what he saw, though.
Casey birdied the 16th to tie Morikawa for the lead. Standing on the tee at the par-3 17th, he looked back and watched the ball roll toward the cup.
“What a shot,” was all Casey could say. “Nothing you can do but tip your cap to that. Collin had taken on that challenge and pulled it off. That’s what champions do.”
Just more than a year ago, Morikawa was in the vicinity of Harding Park, finishing up his degree and his NCAA All-America career at California, part of a new cast of young stars in a sport filled with them. He played the course about a dozen times while in college, but never set up with rough like this, the tees all the way back or the globe’s best golfers trying to beat him. Now he has three PGA Tour victories and is No. 5 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
For Johnson, it was his fifth runner-up finish in one of golf’s four biggest event — his only major title is the 2016 U.S. Open — and his second straight second place in the PGA Championship.
Four players shared fourth: Jason Day (66), Bryson DeChambeau (66), Tony Finau (66) and Scottie Scheffler (68).
Harris English (66) tied for 19th at 5 under for the best finish of the three Baylor School graduates in the event, with Keith Mitchell (72) tied for 43rd at par and Luke List (70) tied for 51st at 1 over.