Collin Morikawa can’t catch record-setting Hideki Matsuyama at The Sentry

KAPALUA, Hawaii – Astonished by Hideki Matsuyama’s relentless play and disappointed in his latest close call, Collin Morikawa could only resort to an expletive to describe what he’d witnessed this weekend.

“Thirty-five under par is, that's low,” Morikawa said. “I mean, he was matching me yesterday shot for shot, and I felt like I was playing lights out, right? … Today he just never let up. Then you get to the third hole and the guy holes it. I just knew I had to be on top of everything.”

Morikawa shot 32-under par this week at The Sentry, the opening event of the 2025 PGA TOUR season. Before this week, it would have been the third-lowest score in relation to par in PGA TOUR history. Unfortunately for Morikawa, it wasn’t even the lowest this week.

That’s because Matsuyama shot 35-under 257 to set the PGA TOUR record for the lowest score in relation to par. Morikawa finished three shots ahead of the third-place finisher, Sungjae Im.

Even after his incredible performance, Matsuyama said he was “in awe” of Morikawa’s performance.

This was a week that Morikawa debuted a new pre-shot routine and a new mindset, both the result of offseason tinkering that Morikawa did during the two months since his last event. He arrived at Kapalua more prepared than ever, all with the intent of getting back into the winner’s circle. This runner-up finish was a promising start to the new season but also a frustrating result in light of Morikawa’s 2024 season.

He finished second to Scottie Scheffler in last year’s FedExCup, but the lack of a victory soured Morikawa’s opinion of his 2024 campaign. Only three players, including the top two in the world, had more top-10s than Morikawa’s eight in 2024. But there were painful losses at the Masters and the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, as well as a second-place finish to Scheffler at the TOUR Championship. Morikawa posted the low 72-hole score at East Lake but finished second on the leaderboard under the FedExCup Starting Strokes format.

“I didn't win. For me, it was a solid year, but it comes down to the wins, and that's what we're focused on,” Morikawa said.

Those are the standards when you have the quick success that Morikawa had after turning pro.

In 2019, he won in his sixth start as a professional. He won two majors, the 2020 PGA Championship and The Open Championship in 2021, over the following two seasons. But he’s won just once in the 3 1/2 years since lifting the claret jug. His sixth, and most recent, PGA TOUR victory came at the Baycurrent Classic in October of 2023.

Morikawa’s runner-up this week also stings because of his ties to the tournament and the area. This is one of the tournaments that Morikawa wants to win most. He’s been close before, finishing no worse than seventh in his six appearances here. That includes a runner-up finish two years ago after he lost a seven-shot lead on the final day.

His father’s side of the family grew up in nearby Lahaina and Morikawa’s grandparents owned the "Morikawa Restaurant" there. Collin visited the area, which was devastated by wildfires in 2023, as a kid and was the first TOUR player to offer his support to the area.

“When you have that kind of support behind you it means a lot and it makes these weeks a little bit better,” Morikawa said Sunday. “It makes you kind of push a little bit harder. You want to play the best you can, so hopefully we'll be back next year and just find a way to shoot 36 under. It might not even be enough.”

There were plenty of promising signs.

Morikawa finished in the top 10 in all four Strokes Gained stats this week, including third in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green. After finishing in the top three of that stat in each of his first four full seasons on TOUR, Morikawa dropped to a career-worst 42nd in that metric last year.

Morikawa said he wanted to get back to “throwing darts” and hitting the pinpoint iron shots that have been his calling card throughout his pro career. His new pre-shot routine is helping him do that. This week, Morikawa mimicked his impact position before starting his swing. He opened his left hip and drove his right knee toward the ball. Morikawa said that a previous back injury made him hesitant to rotate aggressively through impact. This new move helps him trust that he can release his hips in the downswing.

“For me, it's turn hard and hold the face,” Morikawa said. “So all of last year there were good parts, but it still didn't feel like I could just kind of throw darts, and we're slowly getting back to that, which is nice.”

Morikawa also debuted a new mindset this week, one that doesn’t take solace in the plentiful opportunities that pro golf offers. A season consists of thousands of shots and dozens of weeks, each of which is a chance to win, but Morikawa said this week that he wants to put more focus on his current week. He described it as “leaving everything out there.”

“It doesn't mean more aggressive, it just means you're putting all your effort into that one shot,” Morikawa said earlier this week. “We have 20 more events for the rest of the season. You can be ho-hum about it … But that's not the mindset, right? It's I'm going to focus on every shot and I'm going to put in as much as I can into every shot. You look back at the greats, they did that.”

It wasn’t quite enough for Morikawa to start his year with a win. He shot 17 under on the weekend but will rue a few mistakes on the latter half of Sunday’s front nine.

Morikawa was one shot behind Matsuyama at the tournament’s halfway point and after the third round. They matched each other shot for shot on a memorable Saturday, both shooting 11-under 62 to pull away from the field. Thomas Detry started Sunday alone in third, five behind Matsuyama and four back of Morikawa, and joined them in the final group.

Matsuyama’s lead grew after he holed his 107-yard approach for eagle at the third hole. Morikawa made a 14-foot birdie putt to only lose one stroke to Matsuyama’s incredible approach, though. But Matsuyama’s lead grew after Morikawa’s mistakes on the fifth and sixth holes.

Facing a 30-foot eagle putt on the par-5 fifth hole, Morikawa left it well short and missed the 5-footer for birdie. He three-putted from 56 feet on the next hole, missing another 5-footer. Morikawa almost had a third consecutive three-putt at No. 7. He made a 6-footer for par on that hole.

Morikawa holed a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-3 eighth but Matsuyama matched him with a birdie of his own. Morikawa failed to match Matsuyama’s birdie on the par-5 ninth hole, giving Matsuyama a four-shot lead entering the back nine. Morikawa made five back-nine birdies and shot 5-under 32, but only gained a shot on Matsuyama, who also went bogey-free on the back nine.

“There was a good handful (of shots) that I wish I could have back,” Morikawa said. “When you don't get it done, that's where your mind goes to. I know there is a lot of positives, and it's going to take me a few hours or a day to get over it. … We’re going to go on a roll pretty soon, it's just hopefully sooner rather than later.”