Morikawa Continues to Search

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Alex Miceli | Last updated May 29, 2025 7:05 PM ET

DUBLIN, OH - You could call Collin Morikawa conflicted.

Hard to believe that a player with two major titles, an Open Championship and a PGA Championship, is searching from day to day for a swing and a game.

But in Thursday’s first round of the Memorial Tournament, when the 28-year-old Morikawa woke up, he was unsure of what his swing would be, and when he did find it, it was far different from the day before.

The transition started after the pro-am, where Morikawa spent a couple of hours on the range on Wednesday, trying to find something.

The search would continue Thursday morning on the range and go to some old swing thoughts, nothing close to what he practiced on Wednesday.

Morikawa filters through random thoughts, some of which seem unimportant to most but are essential to Morikawa.

So, after filtering through those thoughts, Morikawa settled on something he used at Bay Hill two months ago, where he led by a shot after 54 holes over Russell Henley.

Morikawa would falter down the stretch with two bogeys in the back nine on Sunday, and his even par 72 would cost him his seventh victory.

“It's hard to filter through that, but he did it on the range and was kind of just able to go play golf,” Morikawa said of his 5-under 67. “I got to trust myself that I'm playing good enough golf to go out there and win, and that's what I did today.

It’s not a swing through, but mainly a posture and set-up issue. It's more at the address, ensuring his body doesn’t get lazy.

“Shocker that I didn't stick with it,” Morikawa said of swing thoughts from Bay Hill. “Like I said yesterday, we're crazy. We think one thing's good, so then you go away from that and try something new.”

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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