What I’m hearing on the PGA Tour: Collin Morikawa, Tour Championship changes, TGL’s debut

LAHAINA, Hawaii — Did Collin Morikawa think his 2024 season went under the radar?

He finished second at the Tour Championship. He played in the final group at two majors. He had seven top-5s and co-led the U.S. Team with four wins at the Presidents Cup. By most metrics, he was the fourth- or fifth-best golfer in the world last year, a return to proper form for the star who won two major championships by the time he was 24. Now 27, he was playing the best overall golf of his career. But he wasn’t getting the attention of Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele or Bryson DeChambeau. Was he being slept on?

“No,” he told me, with a dry tone. “I mean, I didn’t win.”

Some golfers judge themselves by the composite, valuing consistent play and quality of their golf day-to-day. They make a whole lot of money, rack up nice finishes and make it to Atlanta every year. And there are the competitors who have a different set of standards.

“For me it was a solid year,” Morikawa continued, “but it comes down to the wins, and that’s what we’re focused on.”

The PGA Tour season kicked off last week at the Kapalua Plantation Course in Maui, one of the tour’s eight signature events with massive purses and exclusive fields. So it was a chance to spend a week around the tournament and report back on what The Athletic saw and learned the past seven days.

One of the primary themes was the mindset Morikawa is carrying into 2025. He admitted it can be so easy in a 20-25 event season to go with the flow, focus on the process and not obsess over each result. That’s healthy. But Morikawa spoke multiple times this week about leaving it all out there each round and each shot. It sounded like the opposite of what a lot of golfers preach. He doesn’t mean overly aggressive, but he’s done being content with solid weeks, referencing his early days on tour when he had just seven opportunities for sponsor exemptions and had to do something with them to stay on tour. That mentality led to a golfer winning his PGA Championship debut and then his Open Championship debut the next year. He didn’t know what he didn’t know, so he just went for it. He believes Tiger Woods had that every single week. That’s what he wants to return to.

• That only made it worse as Morikawa walked into the clubhouse at 32-under par — two shots off the existing PGA Tour 72-hole record — three back of a ridiculous Hideki Matsuyama performance that won The Sentry and broke the record.

“Excuse my language, but (expletive),” Morikawa said with a lei around his neck and a forced smile on his face. “Thirty-five under par, that’s low.”

Morikawa’s pre-shot conversations with caddie Jonathan Jakovac are a bit different. (Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

• One more on Morikawa — I’ve noticed over the last year that Morikawa is not necessarily a super slow player, but he and caddie Jonathan Jakovac (known as JJ by everyone on tour) have some of the longest, most thorough pre-shot conversations.

One day at the Scottish Open, a volunteer held up the quiet sign and shushed the crowd as Morikawa prepared to hit from the fairway. He held it for a minute. Then another minute. Then another. “For Christ’s sake!” the Scot muttered under his breath as Morikawa and JJ debated the shot.

Depending on your outlook, this could explain why pace of play is such an issue. But if you like golf, it can also be flat-out cool. Take the 16th hole Saturday as the two had a full-on, back-and-forth debate about playing an uphill shot from the first cut of rough. They both knew Morikawa tends to hit knuckly shots from that spot, so they couldn’t control the spin. They decided to club down and hit that knuckly shot off the front of the green and roll it up from 91 yards out. You can listen below and see how perfectly Morikawa executed it.

Talking to JJ after the round shed light on the kind of talent Morikawa possesses. Most golfer-caddie discussions are simply numbers. What is it? How much does the wind take off it or add? But these two hardly talk numbers at all. Morikawa is all about feel.

“It’s feel stuff he’s bouncing off me, like the type of shot, not the distance because I know how far those shots go … We’re just talking about flighting a 6-iron, choking it down, holding it against the wind,” JJ said.

The two are entering Year 6 together, the length of Morikawa’s pro career. JJ doesn’t think another caddie could easily fill in for him, because so much of it is from that knowledge of his game and the types of shots he hits. That way, they can talk about feel so easily.

“I can tell when he’s not sure about something, and if I’m sure I’m not afraid to be like, no, dude, it’s this for sure. This is why. If he’s adamant about something and I’m adamant the other way, I just pretty much keep my mouth shut. He’s one of the best players in the world,” JJ said.

Hovland’s toe may keep him out

Viktor Hovland hadn’t entered a tournament since the Tour Championship in August. Then, he landed in Hawaii and on the first night he went to turn off the lights before bed and stubbed his right pinky toe on the bed frame. It was a clean break just days before the season opener.

It was the right toe but the wrong course. It doesn’t affect his swing, as Hovland shot 15-under for the week, but the absurdly massive and hilly Kapalua is the toughest walk all year by a wide margin. Hovland noticeably limped around the course by the weekend. While heading out after the tournament Sunday, he said there’s not much he can do. It will heal by itself, but it might be best to not play too much. He indicated Pebble Beach at the end of the month may be his next start.

TGL will have players hitting shots into a video screen in front of a live audience. (Courtesy TGL)

Why TGL could be better than The Match

The PGA Tour began this week, and then four players hopped on a charter flight Sunday night to prepare for another season opener Tuesday. TGL, the new team golf project launched by the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy-led TMRW Sports, has its first match 9 p.m. ET Tuesday when New York Golf Club faces off against Bay Area Golf Club. So Xander Schauffele (NY), Matt Fitzpatrick (NY), Ludvig Aberg (Bay) and Wyndham Clark (Bay) planned to land back in Florida around 7 a.m. to eventually join teammates Rickie Fowler (NY) and Shane Lowry (Bay) for the first match. Cameron Young (NY) and Min Woo Lee (Bay) were sat for the opener.

When this league was first announced, it was met with some eyerolls. Some of those came from players. And it didn’t get any better when they had to delay a year because the original facility’s tent roof collapsed (something the league says was a blessing in disguise). The consensus this week is that even the doubters have been swayed that there’s potential for something big here with the indoor simulator-like league with state of the art technology.

“I wasn’t sure about it, but now I think it’s freaking awesome,” Max Homa said.

“Going in made me more excited,” Schauffele said. “I didn’t know what to expect, but there’s a lot of wow factor. I don’t feel like I’m easily impressed, but going in I could see how they think this is going to be really special.”

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Both talked about the benefit of being miced up, but more importantly how there’s a shot clock while the other players linger at the team benches. Both think it will lead to natural, cultivated conversation unlike the Capital One matches on TNT where the message is, in Homa’s words. “Hey go play great golf but entertain us with your words.”

There’s a difference between real personalities and performative personalities. Homa thinks it will be an awesome chance for people to see Schauffele — a golfer well known in private for his relentless trash-talking and heckling — to show that side of himself. Whereas Schauffele might not do as well on The Match.

“Xander is gonna thrive, because when he gets going, he’s very funny, he’s very witty,” Homa said. “But if you tell him to go be a jester, he’s not gonna do it.”

But there are concerns. Homa thinks it will be incredible in person, pointing out how happy he is there are around 35 yards of ball carry before it hits the massive screen, meaning fans can see actual ball movement in the air. He went as far as saying he thinks it will be a top five or 10 sporting experience for people in attendance. But…

“I am still very apprehensive about how it will look on TV,” he said. “Because, as a golf fan, I think there are events we play out here that show terrible on TV. I don’t think they do the greatest job in the world. So I’m apprehensive about that. I hope ESPN does an amazing job showing it.”

Lack of consensus on Tour Championship future

The Athletic’s Gabby Herzig broke news Friday of advanced talks to potentially change the Tour Championship format toward a bracket-style format. Most players generally agreed that the current format — where the Tour Championship is a 72-hole tournament but the top players get a head start with starting strokes — fails to accomplish either mission of crowning the correct champion each year or providing a compelling product.

There’s just little agreement on what that solution should be.

Many think using match play — a format they don’t compete in all season — to determine the season champ is flawed. Player advisory board member Adam Scott told the Associated Press that golf isn’t like tennis where the one seed should almost always dominate the 55 seed.

“That’s my problem,” Morikawa said. “One day can you say if you were whatever seed and you lose and you shot 5-under and you lost to a 7-under, can you say my season was worth a 20 or it would be probably like a 16th place? Or a T-16 all the way through? Tough, right.”

Another board member, Patrick Cantlay, said he doesn’t like the staggered start so he would like a change, but really no players spoke confidently about what change they’d actually want.

“I think (a match-based bracket) would be certainly interesting,” U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley said, “because the pressure that you would, that you feel at the Tour Championship, if you’re going to win the FedExCup and win whatever amount of money is at stake, that’s real pressure. So to watch two guys go out and play for it would be pretty cool.”

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A beefier Will Zalatoris

Will Zalatoris was the skinny ball-striking wizard who contended in so many majors at the start of his career, until back issues cost him much of 2023 and the subsequent recovery limited his potential a year ago.

He’s still slender, but “I was tired of people telling me I have a 22-inch waist,” so he added nearly 20 pounds. He usually loses weight throughout the season and left the BMW Championship at 163 pounds. He came to Hawaii at 182. Much of it is for longevity, but it’s also meant he’s not swinging 110 percent like when he first turned pro. He noticed he faded as three-week stretches went on and needed long recoveries. Now, he’s walking these obscene hills and feeling fine. It also led to two 65s this week before ending in 26th.