Morikawa getting back in swing of things for finale

ATLANTA >> Collin Morikawa has no issues with his back, which first flared up during the opening round of the Olympics and surfaced again right before the playoff.

He was more bothered by playing hurt and developing bad patterns in his swing.

The British Open champion thinks he’s back to normal, and the timing couldn’t be better. Morikawa, the former Cal star, began the postseason as the No. 1 seed, and after a missed cut and a tie for 63rd, his FedEx Cup position is No. 11.

That means he starts the Tour Championship seven shots behind.

“It’s just the patterns I built into my swing when I played injured just created such a bad habit,” he said. “So I was trying to teach myself last week how to swing like my old self. We’re working back there. I would call it 95% back to the original swing. There’s just a couple little kinks here and there that show up.”

He has no regrets going to Tokyo for the Olympics. Morikawa says his mistake was playing hurt the following week at a World Golf Championship in Memphis, Tennessee. He tied for 26th that week, but the bad patterns began to take root.

“I know what my swing does, right? I’ve done it for my entire life,” he said. “PGA Tour players are so good at repeating something, so when I do something for two weeks, I’m going to think, ‘Oh, that’s what my normal is,’ when really my normal is not that.”

PLAYOFF SHAVE >> You’ve heard about players growing beards for the playoffs? Dustin Johnson went the other direction ahead of the FedEx Cup finale at East Lake. He showed up Wednesday at the Tour Championship with a clean shave.

And there wasn’t a lot of thought that went into it.

“Yesterday I was shaving and I decided to shave it off,” Johnson said.

He did that ahead of the U.S. Open at Erin Hills in 2017, and that didn’t work out for him. He missed the cut.

Odds are this won’t last long.

“By Sunday, I’ll have a beard,” he said. MICKELSON AN ASSISTANT >> Phil Mickelson is returning for his 13th consecutive Ryder Cup, this time without his clubs.

H fills out the roster of five assistant captains to Steve Stricker for the American team that tries to win the cup back from Europe at Whistling Straits on Sept. 24-26.

Fred Couples also was announced as an assistant, joining Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson and Davis Love III.