‘Very scared’ Collin Morikawa rallies to top 10 at RBC Heritage, says schedule is ‘unknown’

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC — Collin Morikawa had “never been this scared in my life” to play golf within the first spherical of the RBC Heritage.

Coming off a T7 end at the Masters, he was nonetheless swinging it at 50% and “restricted on the pictures I can play.”

“I’m not in pain,” he stated on Thursday. “I know it looked painful, but I’m just very scared, and I’ve never been this scared in my life to go out and play. But I think it’s because it happened on the golf course. I’ve never had any back stuff happen on the golf course. Every time in the gym.”

Three sub-60 rounds later, Morikawa nonetheless feels the identical. Starting the day eight pictures off the lead, he carded a final-round, 4-under 67 to end at 13-under and T4, 5 pictures behind winner Matt Fitzpatrick.

“I’m happy these last two weeks are done,” stated Morikawa after his ultimate spherical. “It’s been a grind. The two weeks of golf have felt like a full year of golf, just grinding through it, playing.

“But it was good, I feel I discovered rather a lot about myself. Mentally, I used to be fairly sturdy all through the final two weeks. There’s one thing to take from not having the total well being of having the ability to swing a membership however type of working with what you’ve.”

One month after incurring a back injury at THE PLAYERS Championship, the seven-time PGA TOUR winner is still feeling its lingering effects. At the Masters last week, he said that he doesn’t feel any pain but that he’s encountering a mental wall.

He looked gingerly all week at Harbor Town Golf Links, tenderly taking practice swings, walking in and out of bunkers and picking up his ball. He had a little more pep in his step on Sunday, where he carded six birdies and hit 14 greens in regulation. Morikawa was second in Strokes Gained: Approach overall this week.

This is Morikawa’s fifth straight top-seven finish, stretching back to his win at the season’s first Signature Event, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and excluding his retirement after playing one hole at THE PLAYERS. Morikawa said the Masters “was among the best tournaments I may have requested for.”

Morikawa and his wife Katherine announced that they are expecting their first child later this spring. Currently, Morikawa will be sitting out the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, where he missed the cut with playing partner Kurt Kitayama in 2025, to recover and test the limits of his swing in a “comfy, at-home setting.”

“I had a couple of swings on the market the place, yeah, the velocity may need caught up to me and then you definately begin strolling and you’ve got that sense of one thing is going to document and it is the worst feeling,” he said. “So I had to actually catch myself and reel myself again this week.”

Beyond that, the PGA TOUR season moves into back-to-back Signature Events in Miami and Charlotte, North Carolina, and then the PGA Championship, where Morikawa won his first major championship in 2020, before capturing The Open Championship in 2021. What will his schedule look like then?

“Unknown,” he said. “Going to see how the physique goes. Obviously we’ve a child due, and that may type of throw some issues off. Going to take it week by week now.”