The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Morikawa stumbles late but hangs onto lead
BRADENTON, FLA. — PGA champion Collin Morikawa went from feeling he could do no wrong to wondering if he could do anything right, and that was just over the final hour Saturday in the Workday Championship.
What mattered at the end of the third round was he had a twoshot lead as he goes for his first World Golf Championship title, even knowing it could have been a lot bigger.
Morikawa walked off the 12th hole with his seventh birdie in eight holes, stretching his lead to five shots with two par 5s still to play. He made bogey on both, shot a 5-under 67 and suddenly had four-time major champion Brooks Koepka and Billy Horschel on his tail.
“I didn’t play great the last six, but a lot to learn from heading into tomorrow,” Morikawa said. “Just to kind of clear my head to get ready for the 18-hole grind tomorrow.”
Koepka, who says his neck has been stiff for the last month, got his mistakes out of the way early by opening with a pair of bogeys and rallied late for a 70. Horschel also had a late rally with an eagle on the par-5 17th and shot 69.
Another shot back was Webb Simpson (69).
Rory McIlroy, who made a double bogey for the second straight day, was hopeful of getting to 10-under to at least give himself a chance. He did one better with a 66, including an eagle on the par-5 13th that gave so many players fits, and wound up just four shots behind.
“It seems like it’s one of these courses where it can give up a lot of birdies and some eagles and stuff, but it can bite you very quickly without really doing much wrong,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, it’s one of these places where you just have to stay patient and know that you’re going to have chances.” Morikawa was at 15-under 201. His troubles began on the par13th, and it looked harmless enough when he put his approach from the rough into the bunker and blasted out to just under 25 feet for look at yet another birdie. Except that he left his putt 6 feet short, and missed the next one to make bogey.
“I never got it going again,” Morikawa said.
He also made bogey on the par-5 17th, the easiest hole at Concession on Saturday, by finding a bunker off the tee, having to lay up short of the water, and then hitting into another bunker.
Morikawa found plenty of positives. He still had a two-shot lead. His putting stroke feels better than ever, and a chipping tip from Concession member Paul Azinger has left him confident on the short-game shots off the Bermuda grass.
Koepka is thankful he still has a chance.
Staked to a one-shot lead at the start of the third round, he opened with two straight bogeys, answered with a two-putt birdie on the third but then followed with eight straight pars and found himself seven shots behind. He had three birdies over the last seven holes.
Webb Simpson had a 69 and was three shots behind, followed by McIlroy and Patrick Reed (69).
“It’s definitely a course that no lead is big enough to kind of be safe because anything can happen,” Reed said.
Also in the mix was Viktor Hovland, who represents what this course can do. He was 7-under for his round on Friday when he bladed a bunker shot at the wrong time and finished with a quadruple-bogey 8 on the ninth hole.
Hovland put that behind him and had a better day. He holed out a wedge from thick rough 45 yards short of the green for eagle on No. 7, and he chipped in for birdie from 80 feet on the par-3 14th.
Hovland had a 66 and joined the group five shots behind at 206 that included Hideki Matsuyama (68).
Morikawa will be going for his fourth PGA Tour victory with a chance to join the list of 23 players who have won majors and World Golf Championships.
ATHENS — Some matchups are just tougher than others. For Georgia and coach Tom Crean, in particular, that’s South Carolina under coach Frank Martin.
Entering Saturday’s game at Stegeman Coliseum, Crean had never beaten Martin. And he still hasn’t. The Gamecocks dominated Georgia from start to finish on the way to a 91-70 victory.
The win was South Carolina’s 10th in a row against the Bulldogs. The Gamecocks (6-12, 4-10 SEC) came in on a six-game losing streak.
“It starts with me, to be honest with you,” Crean said. “They wanted to fight and we didn’t, so I did a poor job of having our guys completely, 100% understand what this game was going to entail. We never locked into the fight.”
The loss was devastating to Georgia’s postseason hopes, which were fleeting anyway. But now the Bulldogs (14-10, 7-10) are assured of a losing conference record, with Alabama — the SEC’s top team — coming to town for the regular-season finale next Saturday.
Georgia will have to win the SEC Tournament to have any chance at its first postseason appearance under their third-year coach. Saturday’s game stands as crystal-clear proof the Bulldogs are incapable of doing that. They can neither play the level of defense that a run like that would require, nor stand up to tough, physical defense.
The Bulldogs’ offense melted like warm butter in a hot skillet against the Gamecocks’ aggressive, matchup zone. They settled for jump shots, which they mostly missed, and went to the free-throw line only three times in the first half. After shooting 31% in an 83-59 loss to South Carolina in Columbia on Jan. 27, Georgia shot 36% this time and added 19 turnovers.
Meanwhile, the Gamecocks made 54% of their shots. Jermaine Cousinard, who scored a season-high 18 points last time against Georgia, scored 23 on Saturday.
“They out-toughed us tonight,” said senior P.J. Horne, who led the Bulldogs with 17 points and made four 3-pointers. “They kind of got us cornered, and we need to know how to fight through adversity.”
Lost in the humiliation was sophomore Sahvir Wheeler setting Georgia’s record for assists in a season. The 5-foot-10 point guard had five assists to give him 170 on the season, surpassing Pertha Robinson’s 169 in 1995.
But it also was one of Wheeler’s worst games of the season. He had seven turnovers, went 2 for 13 from the field and finished with seven points.
Interestingly, Wheeler played every minute of the game, even though South Carolina obviously had an effective game plan against him.
Wheeler wasn’t alone in stinking it up. K.D. Johnson was 2 for 9 from the field, and Toumani Camara was 4 for 11.
Justin Kier, one of three graduate transfers honored in Senior Day pregame ceremonies, was 3 for 4 from beyond the arc and finished with 16 points. The rest of the team was 0 for 10 from beyond the arc.
“This one (was bad), but we can’t stick in the past,” Kier said. “So we’ll soak on this one and get back to work.”
After trailing 41-29 at the half, Georgia fought back to get within five points on Kier’s 3-pointer at the 12:10 mark. That basket was set up on a feed from Wheeler, resulting in his record-setting assist.
But the Bulldogs went into a horrific drought after that. They went the next 5:58 without a field goal. By the time Camara finally scored on a put-back of the second of back-to-back Johnson misses, Georgia trailed by 19 points.
South Carolina’s lead would swell to 25 points. The Gamecocks scored 50 in the second half.
“A lot of times when you don’t want to go through the fight, you settle for jump shots, and that’s somewhat what we did tonight,” Crean said. “Our spirit got zapped early on, and our immaturity came out, to be honest with you. We have to get beyond that, and I did a poor job because we weren’t beyond getting frustrated over missed calls and physical play.”