Collin Morikawa reacts as the top of the Wanamaker Trophy falls after winning the PGA Championship golf tournament at TPC Harding Park Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020, in San Francisco.Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press
Collin Morikawa delivered a shot that will go down as one of the best in a major that hardly anyone witnessed, setting up an eagle on the 16th hole Sunday that carried him to the most quiet PGA Championship ever.
In the first major without spectators, Morikawa finished with a bang.
He was among seven players tied for the lead on the back nine at Harding Park, as wild as any Sunday in a major. Morikawa chipped in from 40 feet on the 14th hole to take the lead, and then he ended it with one swing. On the 294-yard 16th hole, Morikawa hit driver that hopped onto the green and settled seven feet below the cup.
He made it for eagle and was on his way. Morikawa closed with a six-under 64, the lowest final round by a PGA champion in 25 years, and took his place among the young stars taking over golf.
Just more than a year ago, he was finishing up his degree at nearby California, one of several heralded college players ready to rule. Now he has three victories, including a major, by beating a world-class lineup on the public course in San Francisco.
Dustin Johnson never got anything going. Brooks Koepka turned out to be all talk in his bid for a third straight PGA Championship. Tiger Woods was long gone before the leaders even tee off.
This major was up for grabs until one swing on a hole along the shores of Lake Merced, where the tee was moved up to tempt players to drive the green or pay the price if they missed in the trees to the right or the hazard to the left.
Morikawa never hesitated. The swing was never more pure.
Woods, and his back, have challenging schedule after PGA
Tiger Woods doesn’t know how the strange, compressed schedule will affect him for the rest of the year.
Then again, no one else does, either.
“No one has ever experienced this, having a shutdown during the year,” Woods said as he looked ahead to the FedEx Cup playoffs that will be followed two weeks later by the U.S. Open. “It is very different. This is unlike any other year that we’ve ever experienced in golf.”
Woods shot a three-under 67 on Sunday in the final round of the PGA Championship to finish the tournament at minus-one – 10 strokes behind leader Dustin Johnson as he waited to tee off. Woods will take next week off before the three-week stretch of the playoffs that begin outside of Boston on Aug. 20; the U.S. Open, which was postponed from June, will be two weeks after the tour championship.
Although the schedule is new for everyone, it will be a special challenge for Woods, who at 44 has a balky back and hasn’t played on back-to-back weekends since the President’s Cup in December.
“We’ve been training for that. Trying to get my strength and endurance up to that ability to making sure that I can handle that type of workload,” Woods said. “We’ll be pushing it hard to make sure that I can stay strong and have the endurance to keep on going.”
Woods struggled at TPC Harding Park for the first three rounds before putting together a solid round on Sunday, when he was already out of contention. He had five birdies and two bogeys, including a 5 on the par-4 18th hole that left him signing for a 67.
If only it had happened sooner.
“If I would have made a few more putts on Friday early on, and the same thing with Saturday, I felt like I would have been right there with a chance come today,” he said. “It didn’t happen, but I fought hard, and today was more indicative of how I could have played on Friday and Saturday if I would have made a few putts early.”
MAJOR BEEF
Rory McIlroy took exception to some comments by two-time defending PGA champion Brooks Koepka and came to the defence of third-round leader Dustin Johnson.
Koepka, a four-time major winner, was two strokes off the lead after Saturday’s round when he said he likes his chances because “A lot of the guys on the leaderboard, I don’t think have won [a major]. I guess DJ’s only won one.”
It was the “only” that irked McIlroy. Asked about the comments on Sunday, he said Koepka’s attitude reveals “a very different mentality to bring to golf that I don’t think a lot of golfers have.”
“I certainly try to respect everyone out here. Everyone is a great player. If you’ve won a major championship, you’re a hell of a player,” said McIlroy, who has won four. “Doesn’t mean you’ve only won one; you’ve won one, and you’ve had to do a lot of good things to do that.”
Koepka has won four majors and seven tournaments in all. Johnson has won 21 events.
“Sort of hard to knock a guy that’s got 21 wins on the PGA Tour, which is three times what Brooks has,” McIlroy said.
A bigger problem for Koepka than his mouth: He quickly took himself out of contention on Sunday, shooting 4 over on the front nine.