With poise, skill and a major, Morikawa has spot in top tier
Not long after Sunday’s rollicking good show ended, while waiting for the trophy ceremony to begin, Collin Morikawa sat on the cement bench encircling the new Sandy Tatum statue in front of Harding Park’s clubhouse.
Morikawa exhaled, chatted with his girlfriend, Katherine Zhu, and scrolled through his phone. Dustin Johnson walked past on his way to the parking lot. Johnson, keeping social distance, called over and flashed a thumbsup to convey his congratulations on Morikawa’s triumphant performance.
The lesson here, beyond Johnson’s graciousness: Another young stud has entered the wideopen tussle for golf supremacy.
Morikawa’s victory in the
PGA Championship highlighted the everevolving scramble near the top of the game. Morikawa, 23, now stands No. 5 in the world ranking, trailing four players — Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy and Johnson — who all have spent time at No. 1.
Even if Morikawa would finish fifth in a longdrive contest among this group, he clearly belongs in that company after a transcendent, 6564 weekend to win his first major title.
“I’m on cloud nine,” Morikawa said. “I’ve believed in myself since Day 1.”
Score one for quiet confidence. Brooks Koepka, ever feisty and blunt, jabs his competitors. Johnson saunters down fairways as if he owns the place. Bryson DeChambeau flexes his Popeye muscles at every turn.
Morikawa marches along, clinically calculating angles and distances and odds.
His caddie, J.J. Jakovac, marveled at Morikawa’s composure. Not only Sunday, amid finalround tension at a major championship, but also 13 months ago while trying to secure a job on the PGA Tour.
Morikawa, playing on sponsor exemptions after his graduation in May 2019, needed a high finish at the John Deere Classic (in July) to lock up his tour card. As they came down the stretch, with little margin for error, Morikawa acted as if he were playing a practice round in college.
Then, upon completing his 66 to tie for fourth and earn his card, he remained mostly stoic — while Jakovac became emotional.
“He was just, ‘Yeah, thanks,’ ” Jakovac recalled. “I said, ‘Aren’t you excited? You knew you were going to do this, huh?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah.’ He’s not going to be super animated, but he wants to win.”
And he obviously has the game to win.
Other lessons learned at the PGA:
Golf offers distinctive drama. There are no baseball or basketball games with seven possible outcomes. Or nine. One team wins or the other team wins, plain and simple.
Nine players held at least a share of the lead at some point Sunday. Seven players were tied for the lead until Morikawa holed his chip shot on No. 14. The abrupt swings in emotion and momentum were wildly entertaining.
West Coast majors work. Saturday’s third round ended shortly before 7 p.m., or 10 p.m. on the East Coast. Sunday’s final round ended about an hour earlier.
“Prime time is a big deal,” PGA chief executive officer Seth Waugh said. “Everybody’s digging that.”
Television executives are digging it. ESPN’s early finalround coverage averaged 1.97 million viewers, a 60% increase over TNT’s telecast last year. CBS’ finalround coverage averaged nearly 5.2 million viewers, a 3% increase over last year and the network’s most watched golf telecast since June 2019.
So we need more West Coast majors, absolutely. Bad news: The PGA won’t return to the West Coast until 2028 at the Olympic Club. Good news: The U.S. Open goes to San Diego’s Torrey Pines next year, Los Angeles Country Club in 2023 and Pebble Beach in ’27.
The kids are coming. Morikawa leads the parade, but he’s hardly alone.
Three other players under age 26 — Matthew Wolff, Cameron Champ and Scottie Scheffler — also finished in the top 10 at Harding. That’s the most ever at a PGA Championship in the event’s strokeplay era (starting in 1958), and the most at any major in more than three years (2017 U.S. Open).
Two more players under 26, Rahm and Si Woo Kim, finished in the top 15. So did Xander Schauffele (age 26) and Daniel Berger (27). No wonder Phil Mickelson (50) and Tiger Woods (44) are starting to look old.
Harding Park rocks. The course sparkled on television, especially when the sun made fleeting appearances. And it tested the world’s top players: Only Morikawa, Johnson and Paul Casey posted scores better than 10underpar, the benchmark Woods and John Daly set at Harding in 2005.
Even so, Harding averted its biggest challenge: cramming nearly 40,000 spectators on property every day. Waugh acknowledged that was going to be the biggest concern, given the facility’s relatively small size and San Francisco’s lack of parking.
The coronavirus pandemic, sadly, made it a moot point.