Cal Sports Report

Collin Morikawa Eliminated From WGC Match Play Event

Former Cal star never got it going in lopsided loss to Abraham Ancer in round of 16

Jake Curtis

Collin Morikawa Eliminated From WGC Match Play Event
Collin Morikawa Eliminated From WGC Match Play Event /

Former Cal golfer Collin Morikawa was unable to put up much of a fight in his round-of-16 competition against Abraham Ancer on Saturday in the World Golf Championship-Dell Industries Match Play event in Austin, Texas.

Morikawa, the No. 2 seed in the event, barely won his group round to get to the round of 16, then was soundly defeated by the 15th-seeded Ancer 7 and 6 in Saturday's elimination round.

It continues the struggles for Morikawa, who failed to make the cut at the Players Championship two weeks ago and then finished 68th in the Valspar Championship last week.

Morikawa was the betting favorite against Ancer:

In fact, Morikawa was the betting favorite to win the whole thing after the field for the round of 16 was set Friday night.

However, Morikawa never had a lead against Ancer, a 31-year-old Mexican who was born in McAllen, Texas.

The two parred the first two holes, but Ancer took the lead for good when he birdied the third hole. Ancer birdied the sixth and seventh holes to go 3-up, and Morikawa bogeyed the par-4 eighth and ninth holes to put Ancer 5-up at the turn.

Ancer then birdied the 11th and 12th holes to go 7-up with six holes left to play.  That ended Morikawa's short day in which he had one birdie and two bogeys in hi 12 holes.

Here's how the report on the PGA Tour website described the match:

Morikawa lacked his usual sharpness, missing his next two fairways en route to a 5-down hole heading to the back nine. A strong approach from the reigning Open champion to 3 feet was rendered moot when Ancer again poured in his birdie from nearly 20 feet, a warm-up for the 25-foot birdie he holed on No. 11. The match wrapped on the par-5 12th, with Ancer set to face fellow Presidents Cup International team member Corey Conners.

"You want to save as much energy as you can," said Ancer after his decisive victory. "Definitely is nice. I knew, I mean, every time you have a chance to close out a match, you want to do it as soon as possible. It doesn't matter to save energy or anything. I mean, if there are still holes left, there's a chance for him to come back."

The others who advanced to the quarterfinals:

Brooks Koepka, who eliminated No. 1 seed Jon Rahm in a playoff on Saturday.

Scottie Scheffler, who defeated Billy Horschell 1-up

Seamus Power, who beat Tyrrell Hatton 4 and 3

Dustin Johnson, who eliminated Richard Bland 3 and 2

Kevin Kisner, who defeated Adam Scott 1-up

Corey Conners, who got past Takumi Kanaya 5 and 3

Will Zalatoris and Kevin Na are tied after 18 holes and are heading to a playoff.

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Cover photo of Collin Morikawa by Erich Schlegel, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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