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Collin Morikawa’s ball-striking prowess is undisputed.

The 25-year-old had a down year by his standards: He only finished 3rd in SG: Approach The Green on the PGA Tour last season.

Because of the unique rerouting to Quail Hollow at this year’s Presidents Cup, Morikawa and partner Cameron Young were able to take advantage of his strength by having Morikawa tee off on even-numbered holes in their 2-and-1 foursomes win over Tom Kim and K.H. Lee on Thursday.

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The routing of Quail Hollow for this week has every par-3 as an even-numbered hole and two out of the three par-5s. The one par-5 that isn’t an even hole? The 7th which was very reachable in the opening round, playing to just 527 yards, downwind. Morikawa put the second shot on that hole to 17 feet for eagle from 171 yards.

In all, Morikawa hit the approach to the green on 15 of 17 holes in the match. That’s all eight of the odd numbered par-4s, the four par-3s and all three par-5s —the 7th being an attempt under GIR. He hit six of them within 10 feet.

This also played into Young’s strength as one of the premier driver’s on the PGA Tour. He was second on the Tour in SG: Off-The-Tee.

“This course really sets up to where, like, if you play the odds or you play the evens, you hit the majority of a certain shot,” Morikawa said after the match. “Cam hit a lot of drivers. I hit a lot of irons. That’s kind of what you describe our golf games like. We were able to feed off that.”

It’s not a strategy that can only benefit strong iron players and strong drivers, it can also benefit stronger putters.

Jordan Spieth teed off on the odd holes and set himself up to hit nine of his and Justin Thomas’ birdie putts.

Spieth struggled on the greens last season, but has finished in the top-10 of SG: Putting three times in his career, and was known for outstanding putting in the run that led him to three majors in as many seasons from 2015 to 2017.

Thomas is certainly not weak with a flatstick, however, and Spieth said the decision of who would play odds and evens wasn’t an easy one.

“We had a really hard time deciding who was going to go odds and evens,” he said. “We didn’t decide until late last night. If we got the chance again, we might even switch it.”

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The stage is set for for the 2022 Presidents Cup where 24 of the PGA Tour’s top golfers — 12 from the United States and 12 from around the world (except for Europe) — will meet for the biennial matches.

Due to the pandemic, this will be the first Presidents Cup since 2019, when the Tiger Woods-captained U.S. team narrowly edged the Ernie Els-led International squad with a miraculous come-from-behind win in Sunday singles.

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The U.S. team holds a dominating 10-1-1 record in the matches and most expect a similarly dominate performance with LIV Golf defectors being ineligible to play in this year’s event and taking the hardest toll on Trevor Immelman’s International team.

Without further ado, let us introduce you to the players who are playing this year.

United States Team

*denotes captain’s pick

Captain: Davis Love III

Love was a six-time member of the U.S. Presidents Cup team and compiled a 16-8-4 record in those matches. Love — who was born in Charlotte, N.C., home of this week’s host, Quail Hollow Club — won 21 times on the PGA Tour, including one major win at the 1997 PGA Championship. He also notably won the 2015 Wyndham Championship at the age of 51, becoming the third-oldest winner in PGA Tour history. Love was an assistant captain on the 2013, 2015 and 2017 Presidents Cup teams and captained the 2012 and 2016 Ryder Cup teams.

Sam Burns

Career Presidents Cup record: First appearance

Burns may have been overshadowed by close friend Scottie Scheffler in the early part of the 2021-22 season, but the Louisianan had a break out year himself, winning three times, including taking down Scheffler in a playoff at the Charles Schwab Challenge in May. This will be his first appearance at either the Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup.

Patrick Cantlay

Record: 3-2-0 in one appearance (2019)

Cantlay had another solid year in 2022, winning once while defending his crown at the BMW Championship in Wilmington and teaming up with Xander Schauffele to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. He played all of his matches in 2019 with Schauffele and figures to do so again. Cantlay was also very successful at last year’s Ryder Cup where he compiled a 3-0-1 record at Whistling Straits, the one tie coming in the only match he wasn’t paired with Schauffele.

Tony Finau

Record: 0-1-3 in one appearance (2019)

The big-hitting Finau had a slow start to the season before catching fire over the summer, notching five top-5s in a stretch of eight events, including back-to-back wins at the 3M Open and Rocket Mortgage Classic in July. He somewhat surprisingly did not notch a win in his only Presidents Cup appearance in 2019. He only had one loss in four matches, however, and he’ll be looking for a new partner as both his partners from 2019, Matt Kuchar and Bryson DeChambeau, are not playing this year. He’s picked up three wins in his two Ryder Cups in 2018 and 2021.

Max Homa*

Record: First appearance

Homa comes in as perhaps the hottest player in the matches. He won in dramatic fashion last week at the PGA Tour season opening Fortinet Championship, holing a chip shot from off the 18th green to win. He also finished a career best tied for fifth in the Tour Championship in his previous start. This will be his first team match appearance.

Billy Horschel*

Record: First appearance

If you were shocked to learn Horschel is making his first ever appearance in either the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup this week, you’re not alone. Horschel’s career resume includes seven PGA Tour titles, including this year’s Memorial Tournament, and the 2014 FedEx Cup. He’s had a mixed bag of a season, missing four of last eight cuts on the PGA Tour, but with the win in Columbus sandwiched between two of them. He did earn a top 10 in his most recent appearance during his title defense at the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship.

Kevin Kisner*

Record: 2-0-2 in one appearance (2017)

Kisner is the oldest player on Team USA’s roster and has become known as somewhat of a match play savant, including a win at the 2019 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play and owning an undefeated record at the 2017 Presidents Cup. His best finish this past season was a second at — you guessed it — the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, but he did rack up five other top 10s. Kisner will also be looking for a new partner as he played with Phil Mickelson in all three team matches in 2017.

Collin Morikawa*

Record: First appearance

Morikawa came out just as hot as his first three years on Tour to begin this season with five straight finishes of T7 or better, but he fell back to earth a little toward the end of the year, his first on Tour without a win. Although he did lead the U.S. Open through 36 holes, he struggled Saturday and was out of contention by Sunday. The two-time major winner, who is still just 25 years old, showed better form at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August with a T5 finish, but needed to be one of Love’s six captain’s selections to make it to Quail Hollow. He led the U.S. team in qualifying for the Ryder Cup last year and went 3-0-1 at Whistling Straits, his lone tie coming in singles.

Xander Schauffele

Record: 3-2-0 in one appearance (2019)

Like Finau, Schauffele also had a strong end to the season, finishing in the top 20 in all but one of his last 11 events. Again, like Finau, he notched back-to-back wins at the Travelers Championship and Genesis Scottish Open. He also teamed with Cantlay for a team win at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and figures to see a lot of his close friend whom he has a 4-2-0 record with in Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup matches.

Scottie Scheffler

Record: First appearance

Scheffler has come a long way from being a captain’s selection at last year’s Ryder Cup. The Texan notched his first four PGA Tour wins last season, including a major victory at the Masters, and earned the World No. 1 ranking. While he didn’t come away with the FedEx Cup title, PGA Tour Player of The Year honors are a decent consolation — as well as the $5.75 million he got for finishing T2 at East Lake. He went undefeated, going 2-0-1 at Whistling Straits, teaming with Bryson DeChambeau in two four-ball matches. He also beat Kisner at this year’s WGC-Match Play.

Jordan Spieth*

Record: 8-5-1 in three appearances (2013, 2015, 2017)

After missing the 2019 matches, Spieth is back on the U.S. team at just the right time. With stalwarts like Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed absent this year, Spieth and Justin Thomas are the only players with multiple Presidents Cup matches under their belt coming into the week. The 29-year-old notched a win at the RBC Heritage this season and finished a respectable tied for 13th in the FedEx Cup. He carries a career 16-12-4 record in U.S. team cup matches and played with Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed in all of his partner matches in 2015 and 2017. At last year’s Ryder Cup, he paired most often with good buddy Justin Thomas.

Justin Thomas

Record: 6-2-2 in two appearances (2017, 2019)

Thomas may not have met all of his preseason goals, but he notched 11 top 10s last season and his second major title at the PGA Championship. He brings with him the most impressive U.S. team match record, going 12-4-3 across two Presidents Cups and two Ryder Cups. In his two previous Presidents Cups, he paired with Tiger Woods, Rickie Fowler and Daniel Berger, all of whom are not playing this week. He figures to play more with Spieth as he did twice at Whistling Straits.

Cameron Young*

Record: First appearance

Young had a debut season to remember, notching six top-three finishes and was one of two rookies to qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship. Those top finishes also include just missing out on the playoff at the PGA Championship by one stroke, and the memorable eagle finish at the Open Championship at St. Andrews to earn the runner-up spot.

International Team

*denotes captain’s pick

Captain: Trevor Immelman (South Africa)

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Immelman is the youngest captain in International team history at just 42 years old. The South African is a two-time winner on the PGA Tour, including one major, holding off Tiger Woods to win the 2008 Masters. He’s also picked up six victories around the world on the DP World Tour and Sunshine Tour. He’s a two-time veteran of the Presidents Cup and served as assistant captain under Ernie Els in 2019. Many fans will know him now for his broadcasting as he is expected to take over as the lead analyst for CBS’s golf coverage, following Nick Faldo.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout* (South Africa)

Record: First appearance

Bezuidenhout had a solid rookie year, making 20 cuts in 24 starts on the PGA Tour with 10 top-25 finishes. He’s perhaps better known in Europe, having a breakout year in 2020 while notching three victories including the Alfred Dunhill Championship. His best finish on the PGA Tour in 2022 was a T2 showing at the John Deere Classic and he advanced to the second FedEx Cup Playoff event at the BMW Championship. He’s one of five Presidents Cup first-timers selected by Immelman.

Corey Conners (Canada)

Record: First appearance

Conners played his way to the Tour Championship for the third time of his career thanks to 20 made cuts in 25 starts and four top-10 finishes. One of those top 10s came last month at the BMW Championship where he finished in T5, but he missed the cut last week in the PGA Tour’s season-opening Fortinet Championship. The Canadian has one win under his belt on the PGA Tour, coming at the 2019 Valero Texas Open.

Cam Davis* (Australia)

Record: First appearance

Davis notched five top-10s in 25 starts last season on the PGA Tour. His best golf came toward the end of the season when he made his last 10 cuts in a row. His best year on Tour came a season ago when he made 21 of 26 cuts and notched his debut win at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. His cuts-made streak broke last week at the Fortinet Championship where rounds of 74 and 70 sent him to Charlotte early.

Sungjae Im (South Korea)

Record: 3-1-1 in one appearance (2019)

The iron man of the PGA Tour, nobody plays more golf than Sungjae Im. Im had another strong season on Tour in 2021-22, winning for the second time at the Shriners Children’s Open and finishing strong with three T2 finishes in his last five events, including at the Tour Championship. The World No. 19 will be heavily relied upon as one of just four veterans on the International team with Presidents Cup experience. All three of his partners from Royal Melbourne — Adam Hadwin, Abraham Ancer and Cameron Smith — are not on the team this year.

Tom Kim (South Korea)

Record: First appearance

Kim burst onto the scene in 2022, finishing third at the Genesis Scottish Open, seventh at the Rocket Mortgage, and then capturing his first win at the Wyndham Championship in August to secure his PGA Tour membership and even qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He was only a special temporary member when he won, but had earned enough points to get his full status for 2023. He’s now exempt through 2024 and he auto-qualified for the International team.

K. H. Lee* (South Korea)

Record: First appearance

Lee has two PGA Tour titles and both have come at the AT&T Byron Nelson. At this year’s tournament, Lee outdueled Jordan Spieth down the stretch to defend his title. The rest of his season wasn’t much to write home about, with almost as many missed cuts (7) as top-25s (8), until he used T20 and T5 finishes in the first two Playoff events to catapult his way into his first Tour Championship appearance.

Hideki Matsuyama (Japan)

Record: 6-7-4 in four appearances (2013, 2015, 2017, 2019)

Hard to believe the 30-year-old Matuyama is about to start his fifth Presidents Cup, but the Japanese star heads to Quail Hollow as the alpha of the International squad. It was another good year for the World No. 17 on the PGA Tour, finishing 11th in the FedEx Cup after winning twice, with one of those victories coming last fall in his home country at the Zozo Championship. Only one of his previous partners, Adam Scott, is on the roster this week and they haven’t played together since Matsuyama’s Presidents Cup debut in 2013.

Sebastián Muñoz* (Colombia)

Record: First appearance

Munoz hasn’t quite played up to the same level as he did in his breakout season in 2019-20 when he got his first win at the Sanderson Farms Championship and then went on to finish 8th in the final FedEx Cup standings thanks to a solid performance at East Lake, but his 2021-22 campaign was enough to earn a captain’s pick. He had two runner-up finishes on the season.

Si Woo Kim* (South Korea)

Record: 1-2-0 in one appearance (2017)

Kim was the only one of Immelman’s captain’s selections with previous Presidents Cup experience, winning a four-ball match and losing in foursomes and singles matches in New Jersey in 2017. That season was also the year of his signature win, The Players Championship. He won in early 2021 at The American Express, but has not played well as of late, only recording one top 10s in 21-22, last fall at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Both of his partners from 2017 are not on this year’s team.

Taylor Pendrith* (Canada)

Record: First appearance

Normally for a rookie, an injury can be devastating. Taylor Pendrith missed time between The Players in March and the Barbasol Championship in July because of a rip injury, but it didn’t stop him from earning nine top 25s in 16 starts. Since coming back from the injury, Pendrith finished worse than T13th once in six starts, including a tie for second at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and a tie for eighth at the BMW Championship.

Mito Pereira (Chile)

Record: First appearance

Heartbreak at the PGA Championship overshadowed what was otherwise a very respectable debut season on the PGA Tour for Pereira. He opened the year with a solo third at the Fortinet Championship and had two other top 10s, including at Southern Hills. Of course his season will be remembered for the leading the PGA through 71 holes, only to hit his tee shot in the water on 18, leading to a double bogey and missing the playoff. Pereira was rumored to be joining LIV Golf, but reportedly is waiting to jump so he could play in the Presidents Cup.

Adam Scott (Australia)

Record: 16-22-6 in nine appearances

The 42-year old hasn’t missed a Presidents Cup since 2001 and is by far the most experienced player on either team, having more appearances than the entire International team combined and as many as the entire American team combined. His 10th appearance will break his own record for the Internationals. He also has a chance to tie or pass Ernie Els’ International record of 21 points this week. Aging like fine wine, the 42-year-old didn’t win on the PGA Tour this year, but only missed two cuts all year and had five top 10s. His back-to-back T5s to start the FedEx Cup Playoffs helped him play his way into the Tour Championship from outside the top 70 at the end of the regular season. Matsuyama is the only teammate his paired with before on the International roster.

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Sesquicentennial doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it’s a word you’ll hear often next week when the 150th Open Championship is contested at the Old Course at St. Andrews. Yep, one-hundred and fiftieth. Crazy, right? (When Willie Park won the first Open, in 1860, pasteurization was still an exciting new concept and Abraham Lincoln wasn’t even in office yet.) Add into the mix the hallowed venue, glorious Auld Grey Toon setting and Tiger Woods’ first start since May, and you have a momentous event before it has even begun.

This time last year it would have been hard to imagine that another golf story could possibly distract from The Open’s banner week, but that was before an upstart golf tour called LIV Golf turned the world of professional golf on its head. Now, LIV Golf’s advances are seemingly all anyone in the game wants to talk about.

Well, maybe not quite everyone.

“I think we have many other stories we can talk about, right?” reigning Open champion Collin Morikawa said Wednesday from the Scottish Open. “There’s a handful of players that are coming from LIV that are playing this week, but I don’t think that should be our focus.”

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Morikawa was responding to a question about LIV signee Ian Poulter, who on Monday won a legal stay that overturned a DP World Tour suspension and granted him entry into the event. Needless to say, it wasn’t the only LIV question Morikawa fielded — as was the case in his previous presser, and the one before that, and the one before that, and…  

Morikawa is not alone, of course. Since LIV Golf became a oh-wow-this-is-actually-going-to-happen reality earlier this year, few star players — be they LIV defectors or PGA Tour loyalists — have escaped a meeting with the press without being asked to reflect on some element of the deep-pocketed, Saudi-funded league.  

Indeed, four months since LIV came squarely into the picture by announcing its 2022 schedule, players might be wondering how long the LIV-related inquisitions will keep coming. By this point, most of the key players have expressed their opinion on the league — some, to be sure, with more depth and candor than others — and at least a few have expressed their frustration with having to continually address the topic.  

At the U.S. Open last month, Brooks Koepka said LIV queries were casting a “black cloud” over the event. “The more legs you give it, the more you keep talking about it,” he told reporters. (Less than a week later, it must be noted, Koepka himself signed with LIV Golf, sending the LIV news cycle back into overdrive.) Also at Brookline, Jon Rahm, who has stood by the PGA Tour, said he didn’t expect the LIV questions to cease anytime soon, noting, “I think the [LIV] events are spaced out just enough to where when the next one comes, we’re going on have the same talk all over again, right?”

And then there’s Rory McIlroy, the PGA Tour’s knight in titanium armor, who has opined about LIV’s impact and the politics of professional golf more than any other player, at least in public settings.

“Honestly I’m rooting for it all to be over,” McIlroy said of the LIV drama. “I’m just so sick of talking about it.”

That was in May.

Even the media seems a little burnt out, or at the very least on autopilot. In Rahm’s Scottish Open press conference on Wednesday, a reporter began a query with, “The inevitable LIV question…”

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The question related to the LIV players who had won the legal battle to play at the Renaissance Club this week, to which Rahm replied, in part, “I think what’s important is that we have a great championship at hand and not let the golf politics dictate how good the tournament is.”

Which brings us back to Morikawa, who among the players who spoke Wednesday seemed most irritated by the endless LIV chatter — so much so that he had a few words of journalism advice for the assembled scribes.

“Like I said earlier, there’s 14 of the best 15 players,” he said of the Scottish Open field. “You guys write the stories, every one of you guys here, right, and you guys can write the stories about anyone else. We hear a lot of stories about players that are here that come to these press conferences, but you guys maybe don’t write stories about other people that are interesting.

“I think it’s your guys’ job to go out and find these stories that are interesting. Obviously, we are in Scotland so you guys might write about Scottish players. But when we’re at other events, find things guys might have ties to.”

Next week, in the birthplace of golf and the site of 19 previous Open Championships, there will be no shortage of those types of ties.

Less LIV buzz, though? Don’t bet on it.

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Great conditions on a beautiful day at The Country Club led to big scores on day two of the U.S. Open. Among the leaders are major winners, like Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, who spoke to us about the position they’re in heading into the weekend. GOLF editors Dylan Dethier and James Colgan discuss an amazing day of golf in Brookline.

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BROOKLINE, Mass. — Collin Morikawa paced the fairways of The Country Club on Tuesday morning, and the droves of fans following along showered him in praise. He’s a two-time major winner, after all, and one of the most universally well-liked players in pro golf. He used to that kind of treatment.

Playing alongside Morikawa, however, were a couple of unfamiliar faces. Instead of playing with fellow Tour stars in prep for the U.S. Open, the 25-year-old latched on to a couple of amateurs — Nicholas Dunlap and Michael Thorbjornsen.

Not that you would know they were amateurs by the look of them. Both players are rocking staff bags this week — just like the pros — and their approach to the practice rounds looked professional, as well. On each hole, they prepared for every conceivable scenario — chips from unusual spots, lag putts from the far corners of the putting surfaces and the proper lines to blind landing areas.

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Then there was the way they hit the ball.

Dunlap and Thorbjornsen each have that sound when they make contact, and they outdrove Morikawa on a number of holes. If power is the way the game is trending, the next gen is doing its part. These guys can smoke it.

“[Michael] is a great player,” Morikawa said. “He has a great future ahead of him if he still wants to keep doing it … It was just a lot of fun to see him and Nick and just kind of go back to how it was three, four years ago trying to just take everything in.”

Morikawa is not the only one who came away from the day impressed. After their nine-hole jaunt around The Country Club on Tuesday morning, GOLF.com caught up with the two amateurs to get their takeaways from playing with a two-time major winner.

Here’s what they had to say.

Nicholas Dunlap

Nicholas Dunlap is among the top junior golfers in the country, and his win at last summer’s U.S. Junior Amateur earned him a spot in this week’s field. It’s an opportunity he isn’t taking for granted.

“It’s eye-opening,” Dunlap said. “You’re an 18-year-old and you’re playing on the grandest stage of golf with a major champion. It’s pretty cool.”

Dunlap said the biggest learning he took away from the day was getting insight into how to manage his schedule as he makes the jump from junior golf to amateur golf (and, eventually, pro golf).

“I just picked his brain about time management,” Dunlap said. “Especially on weeks like this. I think that’ll really help me going forward.”

Michael Thorbjornsen

Even at the ripe old age of 20, Michael Thorbjornsen has a decorated resume. He’s already made a cut in the U.S. Open (2019) and his marquee wins include the U.S. Junior and the Western Amateur. Yep, he’s got some serious game.

But even with a CV that most amateurs would kill for, Thorbjornsen knows he has a lot to learn. And he took that mentality with him into his practice round with Morikawa (who he calls his “favorite player”).

“I asked [Morikawa] on our fourth hole today, ‘What’s the one thing you would tell me to get better — to get to the next level? Because I’ll do it,'” Thorbjornsen said.

Morikawa’s answer was simple: reduce your three-putts.

“It’s something that I already knew, but hearing it from him it means more,” Thorbjornsen said.

The lessons didn’t end there.

“He also gave me some advice to play with the biggest players that I can, the ones that I look up to the most,” Thorbjornsen said. “Because that will make it feel more normal out there. Like it’s just another round of golf.”

Consider that mission accomplished at The Country Club.

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The PGA Tour’s rivals are, if nothing else, extraordinarily well-funded.

Almost overnight, the Saudi-backed LIV Golf secured $250 million in prize money for its “International Series” — an offering that spans just eight worldwide events and, as of this writing, does not yet officially have a single professional commitment. For reference, the LIV Golf Invitational Series’ purse represents close to half of the PGA Tour’s season-long prize fund. The smallest of the events contested this summer will contain a winner’s check at-or-near that of the Players Championship, which in March awarded the largest purse in PGA Tour history.

For those willing to make the jump, it’s difficult to argue that LIV Golf offers life-changing money. So why is it that as of Tuesday’s deadline, only 15 of the world’s top 100 players had asked for a release to compete?

“I think there’s a lot of guys out there that aren’t just playing for the money,” Morikawa said. “If we were, then I might as well just start playing every week. You don’t see anyone playing every week if they’re just trying to make a quick penny.”

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Of course, money is part of it. A substantial part of it. It’s why Phil Mickelson’s rights comments were so inflammatory, and why the PGA Tour took such umbrage at his suggestion that it is taking an unfair share from its constituents. Mickelson’s comments have inspired players like Morikawa to dig deeper about their share of the pie, but not many of them have agreed with his “obnoxious greed” summation.

“Sure, I’m guessing that the majors do make a lot of money and there’s never anything bad about making more money, but when you say something like that and you put us in the boat of the only other thing that could keep us here is the money, then that’s just not true,” Morikawa said. “Because if that were the case, then you would have had 100 out of 100 sign up for this other tour that’s happening, but you don’t, right? You have the 15, the unknown 15.”

What Morikawa’s saying is that money isn’t all of it. There’s more to being a professional athlete than net worth, which has turned into a rallying cry of sorts for the pro-PGA Tour crowd. Commissioner Jay Monahan presented his side’s defense well in only a single sentence at this Players Championship state of the union: “We’re focused on legacy, not leverage.“

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But the Tour has both legacy and leverage. It has promised to impose a lifetime ban upon those who flee for a rival tour, and it would seem logical that the Tour will lean upon its major championship-hosting pals to do the same. That’s a matter that appears destined to wind up in court, which is about the last place Collin Morikawa envisions himself being when the Open Championship rolls into St. Andrews this summer.

“When it comes down to it, it’s just the love for the game,” Morikawa said. “I’m not complaining about where I’m at right now, and I love the position where I’m at, and I want to keep winning more. Obviously money is a great second part of it, but at the end of the day I didn’t finish The Open last year asking what I made.”

In fact, Morikawa admits, he still doesn’t know what he made from his Open Championship win last summer. That’s not what drives him, and evidently, he’s not alone in that opinion.

“I could not tell you what I made last year at all,” he said. “At the end of the day, I’m telling you about the memories of holding the Claret Jug and showing it to people and bringing it around town and showing it to family. Those are the memories you’re going to make, not hey, I made X amount of dollars; I’m good because of that.”

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Most positive golf acts are intentional — a shot to that side of the fairway, a well-struck approach to that shelf on the green, a putt to break at that ridge.

But some positive golf acts, Collin Morikawa learned on Sunday morning, are a matter of fate.

On Sunday at the RBC Heritage, the two-time major champ discovered one of his career’s most pleasant surprises — an action that was neither intentional nor good … and yet resulted in a birdie nonetheless.

It was there, on the short par-4 13th, that Morikawa faced a chip shot from the edge of a greenside bunker on an awkward uphill slope. As the 24-year-old surveyed the shot, he noticed the downslope on the green was a hornet’s nest. The only way to get the ball to the hole was to land it near the hole. Anything short of that would likely hit the downslope and die well before the flagstick, leaving a difficult (and long) downhill par try.

So Morikawa lined up his shot to do exactly that, aiming for a high, arcing chip to cut into the green and stop shy of the hole. But when he finally struck his ball, he immediately knew something was wrong. Morikawa’s wedge cut through the rough underneath his TaylorMade ball so well, it nearly missed the ball altogether. Instead of catching the shot with the sharp, spinny grooves on the bottom of the clubface, he caught it with the smaller, less-controlled grooves at the top of it.

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Rather than shooting high into the air, Morikawa’s ball plopped just inches above the ground, catching a tuft of rough on the greenside area as it rolled down toward the hole.

“Oh, he got underneath it,” the PGA Tour Live commentator chided. “It needs to go.”

The 24-year-old recoiled, then facepalmed. His ball was about to land way short of the hole … unless?

“And it’s going … in! What a miss!” The announcer cried as the ball hit the flagstick and dropped into the hole. The crowd erupted into a cheer. It was a chip-in birdie for Collin Morikawa, and an unintentional one at that.

For his part, Morikawa couldn’t take credit. He shook his head and offered a sheepish wave as he retrieved his ball from the hole.

You can check out the whole highlight below.

Morikawa would go on to finish Sunday at 6 under, tied for 33rd and a safe distance from the lead at the RBC Heritage. Still, should the result hold, he could see an extra $2,000 in his check from this week thanks to the extra stroke from the accidental chip-in.

Once again, in golf as in life, it’s much better to be lucky than good.

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While neither man left Augusta National with a green jacket, Sunday was still a special day for Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa.

Paired together for the 1:50 p.m. tee time, the duo combined to shoot 13 under for the day — 12 birdies, two eagles and just three bogeys. The 64 for McIlroy tied the lowest final-round score in Masters history, while Morikawa’s 67 vaulted him to a solo-fifth finish.

“Collin is a great guy,” McIlroy said. “It was a great pairing for me today, and happy that we both played well.”

And while their superb Sunday play was exciting, it was the way they finished that sent roars through the grounds.

Both men found the bunker right of the 18th green, and it looked like par was the best score they would muster to finish their rounds.

McIlroy hit first and used the contours of the green to let the ball trundle down the hill toward the cup. He judged it perfectly, and the ball fell in the hole for an unlikely birdie finish.

Morikawa was next to play, and although he took a slightly different route to the hole, the result was all the same.

“That’s as happy as I’ve ever been on a golf course right there,” McIlroy said. “That was an incredible — I’ve never heard roars like on the 18th green. It was really cool.”

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It’s always interesting to hear from a player who is widely believed to be one of the best at something to name the person they feel is the best, and ahead of this week’s Valspar Championship, that player was Collin Morikawa.

Last year, Morikawa topped the Tour’s ranking in strokes gained: approach, and it wasn’t close. But when Morikawa was asked about who he thinks is the best iron player in golf, he didn’t hesitate.

“I still think Tiger has the best iron game. Like, even now,” he said. Like, I haven’t seen him hit a ball for awhile. But when we had our TaylorMade shoots and you would see him out there and I’d talk to him and we did a little 10-minute video of watching him hit irons, it is amazing.”

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Morikawa acknowledged that he’s aware that his own iron game isn’t too shabby, either.

“I still think when my iron game’s on, like, it’s better than everyone,” he said. “It would be bad for me to think otherwise because then I’m showing up to these events thinking, okay, I’ve got to do everything so perfect. Like, I still think I can still play an okay game and still get away with a week and possibly win.”

So what is it that so impressed Morikawa about seeing Tiger Woods in action up close? Morikawa said it was Woods’ seemingly effortless control.

“[He] just hit every shot on command,” Morikawa said. “I mean, it was, and I can go out with some buddies or go out in a pro-am like this and tell them, oh, I’m going to hit this shot, right? But you could tell that he knew exactly what he was going to do and he came out exactly in the same window and it was so simple.

“Like, we want to make it that simple but sometimes for me cut shot comes easier than a draw,” he continued. “I’m working to hit that draw probably a little more than he’s working to hit the draw. It was just so efficient. It was so easy. And that’s how you want to make golf.”

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The post ‘It’s huge’: Collin Morikawa talks the importance of reaching world No. 1 appeared first on Golf.

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Collin Morikawa might be just 25 years old, but his resume is already unimpeachable. Since turning pro in the summer of 2019, Morikawa has won six times worldwide, played on a victorious Ryder Cup team and won two major championships. Pretty stout for someone who just three years ago was a college senior at Cal.

His resume is already among the most impressive of any of his contemporaries, but he still has yet to reach one monumental peak in his short career: ascending to world No. 1.

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“It’s huge,” Morikawa said on GOLF’s Subpar of how important it is for him to reach world No. 1. “I don’t think it will define everything of who I am if I never get there, but it’s a huge goal for me, because it means I’m doing a lot of things right.”

As it stands currently, there is only one golfer ahead of Morikawa in the World Golf Ranking, Spaniard Jon Rahm. And Morikawa knows if he wants to unseat the defending U.S. Open winner from his seat atop the sport, it will take a stretch of incredible consistency.

“Since Day 1, I’ve always talked about consistency,” Morikawa said. “I’ve always wanted to be that Rory McIlroy when I was turning pro; someone who finished top five, top seven every single event for 10 straight events. That’s what I wanted to do.

“Being world No. 1 is pretty much defining that,” he continued. “I’m doing everything right. I’m doing all that on the course right, I’m winning, I’m contending. It’s an accumulation of everything put together.”

Check out the entire episode of Subpar below.

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