‘Sadness’ for Collin Morikawa in runner-up at Sentry

The first word was “sadness.”

Minutes after signing his scorecard, Collin Morikawa was blunt in assessing his final round at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, in what he described as the most disappointing experience of his career.

Morikawa began Sunday at the Plantation Course at Kapalua six strokes clear of the field at the PGA TOUR’s first event of 2023. He made three birdies in his first six holes Sunday, and he was bogey-free for the event’s first 67 holes. He looked unflappable.

Until he was undone by three consecutive bogeys on Nos. 14-16, missing par putts of 10, 8 and 7 feet respectively. Morikawa carded a final-round, 1-under 72 to finish solo second at 25-under total, two short of Jon Rahm, who capitalized on Morikawa’s mishaps with a final-round, 10-under 63 that included a 5-under stretch on Nos. 12-15 Sunday.

“It sucks,” Morikawa said. “You work so hard and you give yourself these opportunities, and just bad timing on bad shots, and kind of added up really quickly. Don’t know what I’m going to learn this week, but it doesn’t seem like it was that far off. It really wasn’t.

“Yeah, it sucks.”

Morikawa hasn’t won on TOUR since The Open in July 2021; this marks his third runner-up finish since then. He arrived at serene Kapalua inspired by recent work with new putting coach Stephen Sweeney, and the stats backed it up, as he averaged nearly two strokes gained on the greens across the first three rounds.

Sunday was a different story, though, as Morikawa missed birdie putts of 3 and 7 feet on the fifth and ninth holes respectively. His lead was in the five- to seven-stroke range for most of the day, but he couldn’t quite push the margin to the point of insurmountable. The bogeys came, and Rahm took advantage.

The first bogey was perhaps the most agonizing. After finding a front greenside bunker at the 284-yard, par-4 14th hole, Morikawa missed the green long on his second shot. He chipped to 10 feet and could not convert the par putt.

That’s the point when he started to feel like he might be losing control of the situation, he said.

“I’ve been in that bunker; it’s not like it’s an impossible bunker shot,” Morikawa said. “Normally 10 out of 10 times, you’re putting it to within 15 feet at worst. I caught it thin.

“Everything felt fine. You make a bogey there on 14, you’re like, ‘OK, you’ve got 15, you’ve got 18, we’re still in it, we’re still right there. No problem.

“Then 15, just pushed the 5-wood just enough and knew it was going to roll down. Practiced that chip a bunch too, and obviously not enough.”

Despite the Sunday stumble, Morikawa remains upbeat about the spring ahead. He’ll stay in Hawaii for a quick vacation, then return to the TOUR for the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines later this month. He plans to play the WM Phoenix Open and The Genesis Invitational, as well.

It wasn’t the preferred result this time, but each week in contention represents a valuable learning experience. Morikawa sees better days – and additions to his five TOUR titles – just around the corner.

“I can finally say it’s not back to the drawing board after this week,” Morikawa said. “It’s really just figure out the small little things. My game hasn’t felt like that in a very long time; I saw little specs of it throughout 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 the 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.”