Morikawa does Tiger proud with final round surge on tough course
When the red golf shirt Collin Morikawa planned to wear in honour of Tiger Woods didn’t make it to Florida, the 24-year-old delivered his respects in an even better way.
“My agent said even though the shirt wasn’t there, go out and play like Tiger would with the lead,” Morikawa said. “I think I did.”
On a golf course that demands near perfection, 54-hole leader Morikawa delivered just that on Sunday. Showing off an iron game sure to impress the injured legend, Morikawa shot a final round 3-under-par 69 at The Concession Club to finish at 18-under and win the World Golf Championship Workday Championship by three shots over Brooks Koepka, Viktor Hovland and Billy Horschel.
“That’s the foundation of my game; hitting tight iron shots, sticking them at the pins, going right at flags when I’m feeling good and I have a good number,” Morikawa said. “I don’t feel weird here or there if it’s late on a Sunday or early on a Thursday, I just feel as confident as I ever would.”
The reigning PGA champion left no question that he is the tour’s leading young gun with Sunday’s win. Since turning pro at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open, Morikawa has four wins, including a major championship and now, a WGC title.
He will move to No. 4 in the world rankings after Sunday’s win, further separating himself from the game’s other bright young stars such as Hovland, 23, Matthew Wolff, 21, and 22-year-olds Joaquin Niemann and Sungjae Im.
Morikawa’s three-stroke margin of victory looked quite comfortable on the final leaderboard, but anyone watching this week saw a gruelling golf course that could produce big numbers with one errant swing. Hovland was near the lead on Friday before closing with a quadruple bogey. A day later, Australian Cameron Smith had a two-stroke lead before making two sevens en route to a third-round 77.
The Concession Club in Bradenton, Fla., was a late replacement for Mexico’s Club de Golf Chapultepec after it was decided the tournament would stay in the U.S. because of COVID-19 travel precautions. With three par-5s over 600 yards, wildly undulating greens and pin locations that demand precise approach shots from well-placed drives, the Jack Nicklaus-tony Jacklin design — named after the Golden Bear’s famous concession of a two-foot putt at the 1969 Ryder Cup — proved a thrilling tournament venue for the game’s best. The fact it might make a 20-handicap think about giving up the game was neither here nor there.
“This course has been really well received this week,” said Rory Mcilroy, who finished tied for sixth at 12-under. “Maybe there was a couple of greens that are a little severe, a couple of pin placements anyway over the weekend that were maybe a touch severe, but I think when we come back again that the guys who set the golf course up will know that.”
Scottie Scheffler finished in fifth place at 14-under, two shots ahead of Mcilroy, Louis Oosthuizen, and Webb Simpson.
The lone Canadian in the field, Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., finished the week tied for 44th at 2-over par after stumbling on Sunday with a 3-over 75.
TIGER SUNDAY RED
Players across several tours paid homage to Woods by donning his famous Sunday red shirt and black slacks. Woods remains at a Los Angeles hospital after severely injuring his right leg in a brutal single-vehicle rollover crash on Tuesday.
“Tiger means everything to me,” Morikawa said. “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 . ... I lost my grandpa about a month ago. And you don’t get to say thank you enough.”
Morikawa’s red shirt didn’t arrive in time for Sunday’s round but players including Mcilroy, Scheffler, Patrick Reed, Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm and others wore the famous outfit at Concession Club. At the opposite field Puerto Rico Open won by Branden Grace, numerous players also wore their Sunday red, as did the entire golf course maintenance staff. On the LPGA Tour, Annika Sorenstam had Tiger’s red and black on for the final round of her comeback event, the Gainbridge LPGA, won by Nelly Korda.
The gesture didn’t go unnoticed by Woods.
“It is hard to explain how touching today was when I turned on the TV and saw all the red shirts,” Woods said in a message posted on social media. “To every golfer and every fan, you are truly helping me get through this tough time.”
SAY IT AIN’T SO
Mike Weir looked well on his way to his first Champions Tour win on Sunday before the birdie tap turned off on his back nine, opening the door for Kevin Sutherland to win his second tournament of the season.
Weir, 50, bogeyed two of his final three holes, shooting a final round even-par 73 at Omni Tucson National Resort in Tucson, Ariz., to finish two shots behind Sutherland.
The 2003 Masters champion was looking for his first worldwide win in 13 years.
Weir led for most of the week and had a four-shot lead through eight holes of the final round.
A string of pars from Weir to open his back nine allowed Sutherland to close the gap to two strokes heading to the par-3 16th hole. Both men missed the green, but Sutherland chipped in for birdie and Weir made bogey and his lead was gone. Sutherland followed that up with a birdie at the par-5 17th to take a one-shot advantage, and closed out the tournament a hole later.