Zozo Championship: Top 10 power rankings at Sherwood Country Club
You didn’t expect Collin Morikawa to stay down forever, did you? Two missed cuts in a row felt like big time news for the young gun who seems to be in contention every week.
That’s what he got back to doing last week at the CJ Cup. He was in the third-to-last group Sunday and fired rounds of 71-65-71-73 to earn T-12th.
Morikawa put in a new Spider FCG putter on Monday. It worked for him in the first two rounds where he combined to gain 1.545 strokes on the greens. There are still bugs to be worked out after losing 3.58 on the weekend, including 3.139 Sunday.
Assume he keeps it in the bag, I like for him to get more comfortable this week while putting on more familiar poa annua.
Regardless, we’ve seen multiple instances where his premier ball striking can overcome all else. The 23-year-old Californian was third at Shadow Creek in SG approach (1.41). Morikawa ranked second on the PGA Tour in that stat last season (.884).
His precision should be rewarded on a second-shot course like this week’s.
Travel can impact a golfer quite a bit. Fortunately, this week is the third straight home game of sorts for Morikawa.
He resides in Las Vegas, site of the last two events. Morikawa grew up in Los Angeles near Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.
It’s got to be a bummer he can’t have family and friends to watch him. Someone of Japanese heritage like himself was probably also bummed that this year’s Zozo Championship moved from Japan. Morikawa finished T-22nd at the 2019 Zozo.
What he won’t be disappointed in is a top-10 like I forecast for the young star.