Collin Morikawa, 23, wins PGA Championship.
Recent Cal graduate joins elite club to win Wanamaker Trophy at age 23
SAN FRANCISCO — From an extraordinary sevenway first-place tie so tangled with storylines it felt almost incomprehensible to follow, the 102nd PGA Championship distilled to a shiny simplicity Sunday evening. It narrowed to a single case of what looks very much like fresh greatness.
It came down to a 23year-old in his second major tournament forging two shots sure to glow in memory, the latter even splashier than the former. It came down to a guy who teed off in the silence of the absence of galleries to two dudes over on the left shouting, “Go, Bears,” a reminder that the golfer and charming personality went to nearby Cal.
It came down to Collin Morikawa bursting from that populous pack in TPC Harding Park’s debut major and elevating a career only 14 months long that already registered as deeply impressive. What looked all day like a probable playoff featuring so many people that they would clog up the tee wound up somehow as an homage to one.
Of course, it’s one who shot a holy-mercy 64 on the stunning par-70 course, with an eagle, four birdies and zero bogeys following upon his 65 of Saturday for a two-shot win at 13 under par. It’s one with a classicalmusic game who joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy as 23year-old winners of the PGA Championship, and
it’s one who saw his number of major titles in 29 lifetime tour events match his number of missed cuts (along with three wins and two more runners-up).
And it’s one who eluded a tie at 10 under par he shared with — inhale, please — 21-year-old Matthew Wolff, major winner Jason Day, chronic contender Tony Finau, major frequenter Paul Casey, major winner Dustin Johnson and 24-year-old Scottie Scheffler.
“It’s been a life goal, obviously,” he said of the major, not very far into quite a life.
He left them all behind with a chip-in that didn’t seem to need a lot of luck on No. 14, a wow, and a 293yard drive to the green on the par-4 No. 16 to arrange a seven-foot eagle, a larger wow. For the former, Morikawa overcame a clunky approach where he left himself off the green to the left, 54 yards away, then recovered directly to the cup.
For the latter, none of the experts and onlookers who saw it will forget. “It just fit my eye,” Morikawa said, and onto the green it bounded and stopped obediently. From the No. 17 tee up ahead, Casey marveled and later said from a second place he shared with Johnson: “What a shot. I mean, there’s nothing you can do except tip your cap to that.”
Somehow, the day had produced that singular story, when it seemed prone to produce a batch of others. Just past mid-round, the board bustled with four guys at 10 under par, four at 9 under par and four at 8 under par. Of those 12 players, eight operated from ages between 21 and 26. “Yeah, there was a lot of a kind of whiplash,” Day said. “Everything was coming and going.”
It traded heavily in the fulfillment of the promise of the young, youngest of all Wolff, the Southern Californian who went to Oklahoma State and said: “I think it’s just amateur golf now. It’s so good. In college I was competing against (Morikawa) and Viktor (Hovland) and Scottie (Scheffler), Cameron Champ.”
And it left everyone impressed, including the summer star who had his best major finish, Bryson DeChambeau, who ended up third. “Well, first off, he’s an incredible ballstriker, great human being, too,” DeChambeau said of Morikawa, later adding, “But he’s clearly an unbelievable ball-striker, and that’s something that I envy and hopefully I can get there one day.”