Monday Morning Rap: Why Collin Morikawa Should Be Excited Despite Brutal Afternoon, And LIV Loses Another Top Executive

Andy Lyons. Getty Images.

One man's heartbreak is another man's triumph

As far as stressful weeks go, the Sentry Tournament of Champions would seem to fit somewhere between Christmas vacation and second-semester senior year. Simply making it to Kapalua means you’re in a great position professionally; you’ve either won on the PGA Tour or reached the previous year’s Tour Championship, both of which now come with multi-year exemptions. You’re beginning the year on an island paradise, in a no-cut event where last place pays $200,000. Pretty, pretty good.

Why, then, was Collin Morikawa looking like he’d rather be anywhere but Kapalua’s Plantation Course on Sunday afternoon? Because, as we just learned for the 84833838th time, winning a golf tournament—particularly with a hard-charging, huffing and puffing major champion breathing down your neck—is extremely difficult no matter where or when it’s played. Particularly when you’re working through significant changes to your short-game patterns. 

Morikawa looked about as rock-solid as rock-solid can be through 63 holes. He held a six-shot advantage with nine holes to play on Sunday and hadn’t made a single bogey all week. Most promising: how great he looked from inside 100 yards, particularly given his rocky short-game history and the significant moves he’s made to address that weakness. Morikawa led the field in putting for the majority of the week after seeking the counsel of Stephen Sweeney this fall. (Much, much more on this in just a bit). And his pitching/chipping looked great too, which isn’t always the case—Morikawa’s bowed-wrist position at the top of his full-swing backswing is a huge reason why he’s such a dynamite ball striker, but the flip side is that pattern makes it difficult to make consistent contact in pitching, where one cannot simply rotate through the hitting zone like they can in the full swing. The clubhead has to eventually pass the hands, and that’s not a motion that comes naturally to Morikawa, and so he worked with short-game guru Parker McLachlin last week to continue grooving a new pattern. 

The ultimate test of anything new in a golf game is how it holds up under pressure, and Morikawa’s new-look putting and chipping did not. And that’s putting it kindly. Morikawa did exactly what he needed to over his first nine holes, playing them in three under and generally showing zero signs of distress. It all changed, as it so often does, when the finish line began to crystallize. There was the bladed bunker shot on 14, which led to his first bogey of the week. 

Then there was a full-on chunk the led to a bogey 6 on the par-5 15th, a hole that Rahm eagled just a half-hour or so prior.

Then another heavy strike with a wedge from 77 yards on 16, and a tentative par putt that never had a chance and torpedoed his chances. He was the only player to make three consecutive bogeys all week, and after playing his first 61 holes in 24 under par, Morikawa played his last 11 in two over to post a one-under 72 that surely felt more like an 82. Jon Rahm had an entirely different afternoon, capping a furious back-nine charge with a birdie at 19 for a 10-under 63 and a two-shot victory. 

Making matters worse for Morikawa: it’s the second time in as many chances that he's squandered a significant Sunday cushion. His last 54-hole lead came at the 2021 Hero World Challenge, when he blew a five-shot advantage when winning would have brought him to world No. 1. In his first few years on tour, he built a reputation as a cold-blooded closer for his steely look and no-nonsense play in contention. That closer mystique has taken a massive hit after the Hero and now this. Morikawa’s a highly intelligent young man, and he’ll take a dispassionate look at how exactly this unraveled the way that it did. When a day like this happens, you can respond in two ways: you can sulk and let it impact your confidence, or you can grow hungrier to exorcise those demons when you get the chance again. Smart money says Collin falls into the latter category, and he was already looking ahead minutes after finishing up at 18. 

"I'm going to take two days off and enjoy Hawaii a little bit more," he said. "It's not going to be as great, but it will still be good. But, yeah, my mind's already thinking about what we need to do. It's going to hurt, but I got to get over it because we're still in the very early parts of the season.

Morikawa wouldn’t have collapsed like he did if Rahm wasn’t consistently pushing up the board after an opening bogey. Playing like a man with precisely zero to lose—he trailed by seven to begin the day, and when he made the turn he was eight back and admitted after the he wasn't even paying attention at that point—Rahm kept hitting perfect shot after perfect shot on the back nine. It’s much easier to be the chaser than the chased in golf, and Rahm played the four-hole stretch from 12-15 in five under par to emerge from a sleepy pack of contenders. He barreled toward the finish line as Collin limped, and there was more than enough time for him to successfully execute the leapfrog. 

"I knew I was going to need an extremely low back nine," he said after posting a closing 31. "My objective was to get as close to 30-under as possible. That was what I had in mind. Collin was, I believe, at 27-under already before he even played nine. So I have to assume he's going to birdie the par-5s, so that puts him close to 30-under. So I just kind of forgot about it for a second. Then I just started playing 10, made a couple good swings, made the putt. Another good swing on 11, made the putt, and then the birdies came in, and I realized after the birdie on 13 that I had a bit of a chance. But I've never really thought about how hard it was going to be. If I'm constantly thinking about how many back I am, it can get a little daunting for anybody."

After a disappointing major season in 2022, Rahm has now won three of his last five starts and has been T-8 or better in each of his last six. Rory McIlroy chose to sit this one out, and Cameron Smith had that choice made for him, but Rahm used the first week of 2023 to elbow his way back into the best-in-the-world picture. At least in my mind. In his, well, he's already been there. 

“I feel like since August I've been the best player in the world," Rahm said after the W. "I feel like, and I think a lot of us should feel like a lot of times we're the best…

Rahm absolutely feasts on Kapalua, as you’ll recall he shot 33 under to finish second to Cameron Smith last year. He’s now a combined 60 under par over his last eight rounds there. That’ll get it done. Perhaps this golf course owed him one. 

"I'm not going to lie. Had I shot 60 under par in two starts here and not won either one of them, that would have been a hard pill to swallow." 

Why Morikawa should still be extremely excited about 2023

If only he could putt. Almost immediately after he catapulted to stardom by winning a PGA Tour event in his sixth professional start, Collin Morikawa’s name became synonymous with that hypothetical. Such is the reality for a player whose statistical profile tells such a clear story—Morikawa is a generationally great iron player, and he’s excellent off the tee, too. If only he could putt. 

That’s not a knock on the 25-year-old; it’s hard to take issue with with a guy with multiple major championships and a career-high ranking of world No. 2. For a bunch of players, the second part of the if only he could putt hypothetical goes something like this: if only he could putt, he’d be a single-digit handicap. If only he could putt, he could’ve made it to the PGA Tour. With Collin, well, the second part of that sentence remains a mystery because you’re almost scared to finish it. Certain names come to mind, and those are names that you simply don’t include in comparisons. That’s how frightening a good-putting Collin Morikawa can be. 

It’s this simple: when he putts well, he wins, or he comes damn close to winning. This isn’t just conjecture. We have tools to measure this kind of stuff, and the numbers support that hypothesis.  Per stats oracle Justin Ray, coming into the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Morikawa had finished in the top 10 of strokes gained putting just four times in his career. His finishes in those events:

—WIN, 2020 PGA Championship
—T-2, 2022 Genesis Invitational
—2nd, 2021 Memorial
—WIN, 2021 WGC at The Concession

Another great putting week comes to mind where official strokes gained stats weren’t available: the 2021 Open Championship, when he rolled 12-footer after 12-footer in en route to capturing the Claret Jug in his first try. Again: when he putts well, he wins. The problem is he hasn’t putted well nearly enough times. In his three full seasons on the PGA Tour, Morikawa has ranked 128th, 178th and 131st in strokes gained putting. It’s not that he hasn’t tried fixing it—Morikawa’s been through his share of flagsticks, and in February 2021, he switched to a “saw” grip at the suggestion of Mark O’Meara. But the inconsistency continued and the frustration began to build. So he sought out the guidance of a proper putting guru in Stephen Sweeney late last year. When we spoke for a Fore Play podcast interview in December at the Hero, you could hear the excitement in his voice after just a few months of work with Sweeney. 

‘It’s just understanding putting,” Morikawa told me. “It sounds stupid, because putting sound so simple. It’s such a short stroke. But if you showed me someone’s golf swing, I could dissect it and tell you what’s wrong and what you need to fix. But (before) if you showed me someone’s putting stroke, a good putter—and everyone’s a good putter out here—it’s like, looks fine to me. They’re all gonna look good. I might tell you something, but in reality, it’s like, why does it do that? Why does it do this? I’m just trying to learn more. And that’s why putting has become actually fun. Like, I’m excited to putt. I understand it. 

“I could just do the same drills again and again, for no reason. That’s what I was doing. I was just doing them. It’s pretty shocking to see where I’ve gotten in my putting just in the past month. And I’m not betting that it’s going to happen in a day, or one tournament. But it’s really cool to see what it’s turning in to.” 

It’s sort of amazing that a player of that caliber, with those resources, went so long essentially flying blind in such a crucial aspect of the game. Still, better late than never. Morikawa rolled it beautifully all week at Kapalua’s Planatation Course in building a six-shot lead after 54 holes—and while his week will be remembered for his painful final five holes, there is so, so much to be encouraged about on the greens. We must note, of course, that one tournament does not a great putter make. And, as we discussed earlier, it’s not like Morikawa hasn’t had great putting weeks in the past. But this feels…different. It feels more sustainable. His entire putting process has been recalibrated, from his new pre-shot routine of placing his open hands next to each other before gripping the club, to his new longer-back and shorter-through stroke. The only question is why this come-to-putting-Jesus moment took so long. 

“Looking at it now, it seems obvious that it should have been done earlier,” says Rick Sessinghaus, who's been Morikawa’s swing coach and mentor since he was 8. “This time around, we needed an expert with a process and a plan. Stephen has been great as he has balanced out fundamentals, cause and effect, and processes to help Collin built a foundation and know more of what leads to his good putting and what leads to his poor putting. I am very excited to have him on board. 

“It’s all about making Collin a better player now and for the future. I am seeing that spark in Collin’s eyes again as he loves to learn and improve. It is going to be a great year. His attitude is positive and his smile is back.”

Morikawa fell out of the best-player-in-the-world conversation in 2022. It’s what happens when you go winless while Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Cameron Smith picked off big titles. But if this putting transformation proves to be a lasting shift, this could be the most significant improvement in a specific area of a player’s game since Dustin Johnson dialed in his wedges. That transformed him from a hugely talented bomber to an all-time great. This could transform Collin Morikawa from a multiple major winner to…sheesh, I still don’t know if I can get those words out. We’ll settle for this: it could turn him into a very, very special player, and he felt a difference in the quality of his play this week.

"My game hasn't felt like that in a very long time," he said Sunday. "I saw little specs of it throughout kind of the fall season and was never able to put four rounds together. We're still getting there, but for me I know there's still a lot of work to do. Obviously it shows today, but I'm willing to put in that work. I think at this point now it's just kind of going to hopefully just push me more and more to really figure out what it's going to take for 72 holes."

LIV loses another top executive, and our eyebrows are officially raised

This one slid under the radar a touch, but another key executive has left LIV Golf. Just a few weeks after Atul Khosla left his post as President and Chief Operating Officer of LIV Golf after less than a year—a massive part of Khosla’s job was turning LIV into a profitable business, which he insisted was feasible—news dropped that Matt Goodman, who acted as LIV’s Director of Franchises, is no longer with the company. 

LIV declined to comment on Goodman’s departure but did say that both roles had been filled on an interim basis as they search for permanent candidates. 

It’s hard to view Khosla’s and Goodman’s exits as isolated incidents given how vital the franchise model is to LIV’s self-professed goal of turning a profit. When LIV paid nine-figures to secure guys like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau, despite having no corporate sponsors and no broadcast deal, a rather salient question quickly emerged: How on earth are they going to make that money back? A broadcast deal would help massively, as would sponsors, but Khosla acknowledged that the success or failure of LIV Golf will largely depend on the success or failure of the franchise model. 

The model: Formula One, where each of the 10 teams are owned by a corporation. Team Ferrari. Team Mercedes. Team Red Bull. These teams can sell merchandise and sponsorships of their own, and they receive money for higher finishes, and they can sign and trade for whichever drivers they like. 

But buying a Formula One (or any American sports franchise) is not merely a business decision. A sports franchise is a really, really shiny toy. Maybe the shiniest toy money can buy. LIV, as well as some high-profile players with individual stakes, own all 12 four-man teams in the league, but the plan is to sell these franchises to wealthy people or companies that want to feel close to the action—to hang out on the boat with Dustin Johnson, to have dinner with Cameron Smith, to be known as the guy who owns a LIV franchise. There are obviously no shortage of wealthy individuals in the golf space, and a number of equipment manufacturers profile as natural fits to fill the role of Ferrari and Mercedes in F1. Think Team TaylorMade, or Team Callaway. But as of this very moment, LIV is yet to secure corporate sponsorship, nor a broadcast deal (though one is expected in the coming weeks), nor sold any of its franchises. Furthermore, the team aspect largely fell flat from a fan-interest perspective over its first year. At most LIV events it felt more like a sideshow to the individual competition than anything else. And besides the 4 Aces, who dominated all year, no one (including players) seems to have any idea who's on what "franchise." 

Perhaps Khosla’s and Goodman’s departures are due to other reasons; each had a great gig at a sports franchise that didn’t have ties to the Saudi Arabian government (Goodman previously worked for New York City FC and Khosla at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), and maybe they simply wanted out of all the drama and controversy. Or maybe there’s something more going on here. Keep in mind that while both those men, in addition to Greg Norman, ultimately answer to the Saudi royal family and its tight circle of insiders. And if someone in that circle wanted them out, for any reason—for example: the TV negotiations and/or selling and marketing of the franchises aren’t going as well as the Saudis had hoped—then they’re gone. 

As I’ve stated earlier, LIV signed more big-name players than I ever anticipated in Year One, and they deserve significant credit for staging eight tournaments around the world on such short notice. But while they certainly could hypothetically afford to do so, the Public Investment Fund is not the type to simply pour endless money into a losing enterprise, and all this C-level suite instability—let’s not forget that previous reports suggested LIV was eyeing a more traditional CEO to replace Norman—is absolutely worth keeping an eye on as this Startup Unlike Any Other rolls into Year Two. 

More…

—The USGA announced that Winged Foot West will host the 2028 U.S. Open. No surprise here, as Winged Foot is one of the truly iconic championship venues in this country, but I'll be really interested to see how they set it up vs. how they did in 2020. A number of players were frustrated with just how hard the fairways were to hit that week—Bryson hit just 41 percent of them and was actually above the field average—and felt that it played straight into the bombers' hands. The thinking: if everyone's missing fairways, the guy who's closest has a massive advantage. We'll see if they adjust in 2028. 

—Billy Foster, who caddies for Matt Fitzpatrick, is one of the funnier characters on the traveling PGA Tour circus. On Friday, Foster grew a little impatient as the first-tee announcer showered accolades on his boss’ playing partner, Scottie Scheffler.

“They announced my four wins,” Scheffler said, “and Billy Foster kind of cracked a joke. Then Matt gets up, and they announce ‘the 2022 U.S. Open winner’ an Billy goes, take that! There’s one you didn’t win!”

—Per Golf Channel, the PGA Tour has granted a few of its members' requests to play in the Saudi International, an Asian Tour event in Jeddah that's funded by the same Public Investment Fund that's behind LIV Golf. This is obviously significant given the PGA Tour's battle with LIV Golf—but, as Alan Shipnuck sharply noted on Twitter, the PGA Tour has to be careful with what it does and doesn't allow players to do given all these anti-competition lawsuits. And the PGA Tour has granted releases to play in the Saudi International before—including to guys who went to LIV like Phil and DJ, but also those who didn't, like Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood—so refusing to do so now would look extra fishy. 

—One more Alan Shipnuck plug: His piece on the budding bromance/mentorship between Jordan Spieth and Tom Kim was delightful. 

—Xander Schauffele’s got a desert-dry sense of humor himself, and he was able to make light of his Friday withdrawal from the Sentry with a back issue. 

“The irony hurts. I try to exercise more, eat better and do everything better and I should have just stayed fat and like more mobile, I guess, and not worked out and try to do all these good things and I would have been like a golfer from, you know, the early '90s.”

He’ll have an MRI done this week to properly assess the damage. 

—Speaking of back injuries…a very solid return to competition for Will Zalatoris, who was making his first start since last year’s BMW Championship in August. He called himself “disgustingly rusty” after Friday’s round but was kinder to himself on Sunday, when he posted an eight-under 65 to finish the week at 20 under, tied for 11th.

“Josh (Gregory) my coach even said, ‘Just four rounds being healthy was kind of the goal this week and obviously you're way ahead of the curve.”

—Cameron Young gave us the most relatable clip of the week when he putted a ball well off the front of Kapalua’s par-5 15th green on Saturday, then chunked his next shot. The non-relatable part: He got up-and-down from there for his bogey, birdied two his next three holes then closed the week with a nine-under 64. 

—This shot from Tom Hoge pissed me off. Not because Tom's not a perfectly nice fellow or anything like that…but because if you or I hit a ball in that cabbage, we're never finding it and making double. I guess being able to shoot 62 isn't enough for these guys. They get to find every ball, too. The rich get richer.

\I'm only kidding…sort of. A helluva couple days for Hoge, who began the year with a very tasty T-3 and will now head to L.A. to watch his alma mater TCU play for the natty. He'll then head back to Oahu for the Sony Open. 

—It was essentially impossible not to have a stacked leaderboard this week, with only 39 PGA Tour winners and/or Tour Championship-qualifiers in the field. But get the best players together more often and you’re far more likely to have Sundays like these, when two blue-chip players are battling head-to-head down the stretch. This is precisely what the PGA Tour had in mind when creating these designated events. And while the Sentry’s never going to have the buzz of the mainland events—there’s never really any crowds in Maui and it falls right during the meaty conclusion to the NFL’s regular season—you have to think Ponte Vera feels pretty good about their product after the first-ever designated events. 

—California got pelted with a storm early in the week, with the Northern half of the state getting the brunt of it. Monterey Peninsula Country Club, a remarkable 36-hole facility whose Shore course hosts the pros every year for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, lived a nigghtmare as seawater swallowed up multiple holes. It looked to be some serious damage, so it was great to get some updates that the cleanup effort is underway and that the iconic par-3 14th will only be closed temporarily. 

—J.J. Spain went with the short-sleeve button-down look on Friday, and as anyone who’s worn one on the golf course knows, it’s impossible to tuck in an SSBD. 

The Fore Play socials posted his outfit and asked how the people felt about it. As you might imagine, opinions varied. Here’s mine: allow each tournament to have its own dress code, just as every golf course has its own dress code. If Memphis wants to allow guys to wear shorts in August, they should be able to do so. If Augusta wants to require pants and ban hoodies, they should be able to do so. And if the Sentry wants to let guys lean into island life by going untucked, they should be able to do so. Seems like a common-sense solution that would lead to more varied and cool looks on-course—something the players, their sponsors and the tour can get behind. Why not?

Until next week,

Dan