Class Collin an iron man
COLLIN MORIKAWA showed fellow Californian Bryson Dechambeau how to perform on and off the course yesterday.
And while last year’s USPGA champion sits second after a 64, the 2020 US Open winner had to scramble to make the cut.
Big-hitting Dechambeau followed his bid to bomb and gouge his way around Royal St George’s in the first round by blaming the maker of his Cobra driver.
Yesterday, Morikawa plotted his way around the quaint old Kent links and came within a lipped-out putt of the course record – and then praised his clubs.
“Yeah, I love my clubs, I love every single one of them, thank you,” he laughed. “That’s Taylormade, by the way.”
Brooks Koepka, who shot a 66, teased his rival Dechambeau by claiming: “Drove the ball great. Love my driver.”
Morikawa, the best iron player in the world, is the perfect, polite antidote to all Bryson’s bravado.
Morikawa missed the cut at the Scottish Open last week and then quietly made his own changes.
He switched his seven, eight and nine irons to cope better with links turf and went back to the conventional putting grip from the claw for putts over 25 feet.
“Last week I wanted to win but I came out of it learning a lot more,” Morikawa said. And it worked.
The world No.4 – the highestranked player ever to make his Open debut – made seven birdies in his first 14 holes to have the all-time Major record of 62 in his sights.
A bogey at 15 stalled his charge but he still had an eight-foot birdie at the last to equal the 63 shot at Sandwich by Sir Nick Faldo and Payne Stewart in 1993.
“I had no clue what any record was,” Morikawa admitted. “I’m awful with that kind of stuff. I was just trying to make a lot of birdies out there.”