Collin Morikawa knocking down flag sticks with his irons is nothing new, but he’s got a new trigger for helping him do it this week at the Sentry.
Morikawa didn’t win in 2024, but he ended up finishing second at the Tour Championship and matched his career-high with eight top-10s. And he did it all with his worst ball-striking year on Tour, finishing 44th in strokes gained: approach after having never finished outside the top four in the stat his first four years on the PGA Tour.
So during the offseason, Morikawa used eight weeks off to tinker with his game a little and he wound up with a new preshot routine.
“If you watch a lot of my shots today, I was kind of doing this little preset thing before a lot of my iron shots,” Morikawa said Thursday after opening with a seven-under 66. “Just kind of allowing the body to get to where it needs to be in the shot. But, yeah, it’s been working, which has been nice. It wasn’t a two-day thing and then throw it in the trash.”
On many of his shots with irons and fairway woods, before Morikawa takes the club back, he drives into his lead leg by rotating his hips open to mimic his impact position.
It’s a subtle change, but one that’s paying big dividends for Morikawa through two and a half rounds at Kapalua. Through three rounds, Morikawa was third in the field in strokes gained: approach, gaining nearly six shots on the field thus far. He’s also missed just two greens through the first 54 holes of the tournament, one off the PGA Tour record.
On Friday, he explained he came up with the routine to help him prevent with injuries.
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“I’ve gone through a couple injuries with the back, just tweaking it a little bit here,” he explained after a second round 65. “I think when I try and— not play through it, but your body’s used to certain positions, and we do so much repetition with our bodies, that sometimes you just build bad patterns.
“I just had to just tell myself that I can kind of rotate and stay in that position and that’s all it’s really doing. I’m not thinking about it. It’s saying, okay, you’re safe to go there, just let it go. And it’s been nice to see the cut’s been back a little bit more with a little bit more space.”
On Saturday, during a mid-round interview with NBC’s Todd Lewis, Morikawa called it a trigger and said it was putting him in a good mindset for this week.
