Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images
Morikawa led the field at Augusta National Saturday as he climbed into the final pairing of The Masters.
Collin Morikawa entered the 88th Masters Tournament in relatively poor form.
Despite historically being a great iron player, which tends to play well at Augusta National, he was overlooked as someone that could win the Green Jacket this year.
Well, Morikawa is proving all of the doubters wrong. He is also doing it after making an uncharacteristic decision of changing his putter after Thursday’s opening round.
Morikawa has made the most of it. He has improved his score each day at Augusta and carded a 3-under 69 Saturday.
That moved him to 6-under for the tournament and into the final pairing Sunday alongside World No. 1, Scottie Scheffler.
Following his round, Morikawa joined CBS Sports’ Amanda Balionis to detail his approach to such a change.
“Why not? Build your own game plan. Build your own pathway to get to the final round. At the beginning of the week, if you asked me if I was going to be tied for the lead or one shot back heading into Sunday, I would have taken it.”
Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Collin Morikawa on 18th green of Augusta National at the 88th Masters
The California native gained 2.98 strokes on the field putting Friday, and over a stroke Saturday.
Morikawa had seen his game struggle since late 2023. He also tweaked his back in December, causing him to withdraw late from the Netflix Cup in Las Vegas.
But everything appears to coming together again at just the right time.
“I have kinda gone through the whole encyclopedia of what I have done in the past. I found something on Monday and we’re going to stick to it,” Morikawa said.
He certainly has found something all right.
Windy conditions led to a number of stars missing the cut, some of which posted scores in the 80s. Tiger Woods, after setting a record with his 24th consecutive Masters cut made, posted a career-worst 82 Saturday.
Yet, Morikawa was the only player to break 70.
But the job is far from done. It is going to take an even better round likely to capture his first Green Jacket Sunday.
Kendall Capps is the Senior Editor of SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social media platforms.
