'Old Man' Collin Morikawa Regrouping After Winless 2022
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Collin Morikawa drew a few chuckles, if not outright laughter, when he suggested last week that some of his issues in a trying 2022 season could be attributed to age.
“To be honest, I think it’s just getting old," said Morikawa, who is barely able to rent a car at 25, hasn’t been out of college as long as he was in, and won’t turn 26 until February.
Ah, youth. Morikawa, who already has won two major championships among his five PGA Tour titles, was simply trying to explain a year that has not gone to his liking.
Morikawa began the year ranked No. 2 in the world, but has slipped to 10th as he added no tournament titles and was not in contention as often as he had hoped.
“Yeah, no, it's just getting old," he said. “I mean, man, like I drank way more in college than I ever do now, but apparently when you get older, your body just moves differently. I still feel great, like everything feels great, everything moves great, but it's just not as clean as it was.
“And the maintenance I have to do now is just a little bit more. It doesn't mean I need to do anything crazy, I'm not changing anything really, it's just getting my body to where I need it to be. Last year I didn't really have to focus on it, but when I look back and you think about how much travel I've done over the past three and a half years, it's a lot.
“It doesn't stop. I love it, but travel takes a toll on your body and it takes a toll on you and you've got to be able to kind of work your way through that and that's what the best athletes are doing."
After winning a World Golf Championships event, the British Open and the season-ending DP World Tour Championship on the European Tour in 2021, Morikawa was set to take over the No. 1 spot in the world when he led the Hero World Challenge by five shots last December.
But Morikawa coughed up that lead and—while it’s not the root of his problems—he’s not been the same since.
He has five top-five finishes in 2022, but his closest chance at victory was a runner-up finish at the Genesis Invitational in February. He was fifth at the Masters and T5 at the U.S. Open, but a third-round 76 at The Country Club was his undoing at the U.S. Open.
Since then, Morikawa has just one top-10 finish in eight starts.
“It was a lot more stressful this year," he said. “I've just been kind of trying to figure out what was wrong when it was simply just kind of a body thing and just the way my body was moving. Unfortunately, it took seven, eight months throughout the year to at least find that, but that's on me. Everything is on me just to know what's going on.
“I've got a great team around me, but that's the best thing is that I still have to be aware of what I'm doing. I just wasn't kind of being able to make sure everything was where I wanted it to be. It's a grind, but that's what's great. Even though we are kind of heading towards this offseason, this fall area, I'm putting a lot of pieces together and putting a lot of work in to make sure this kind of next '23 is going to be as best as ever."
Morikawa is undoubtedly dealing with the weight of expectations. He’s played in just 12 major championships, winning two and posting a total of six top-10s. He had two top-fives this year, but also missed the cut in defense of his Open title.
And so here is Morikawa, coming off a nice tournament in Mexico, unlikely to play again until the Hero World Challenge next month. A second-round 63 helped him to a tie for 15th.
“A lot of it is just to really build on this, what happened throughout this year in '22, and just come out swinging in '23," he said. “I'm going to use this kind of fall season no matter how it turns out just to kind of fire myself up for '23 and be ready come beginning of January."