WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 22, 2022

Collin Morikawa

Austin Country Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome Collin Morikawa to the interview room for his press conference at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. Welcome back, Collin. You're making your second start this year and you enter the field as the No. 2 seed. Just thoughts on returning and the format of this unique event.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I love it. I think anytime we have tournaments, whether it's this or like a Zurich team event, they're always fun because it's something different that we normally don't get to do. And anytime you get to play match play, it's a whole different mindset on how you go into the week. Obviously played last week. I had two days of prep, but all I need to worry about is who I'm going to be playing that day and trying to beat them hole by hole. It's a fun format, and I'm glad to be back, and hopefully we can make it a great week.

Q. Have you had a chance to play the course? Just your thoughts on Austin Country Club and the golf course.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Haven't played it this year yet, but last year I thought it was a great course. As a match play course, I think it's pretty good because there's a lot of things you can do. There's a drivable par-4, some risk-reward holes, and there's a lot of places out here where you can put yourself in trouble and make maybe par and get some momentum or make a birdie out there. There's a lot of ups and a lot of downs, and hopefully you just get off to a good start and start your matches off pretty well.

Q. Looking at the results last year, in this particular format are you able to separate the performance from the result? It seems like you could have played well and lost or tied or whatever the case may be or played poorly and won.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, I think the hard thing is you can't worry about anyone else out there. You can't worry about, oh, this guy might have shot even and won his match and then I shot 5-under and I lost. All you have is control over what you're doing and who you're playing.

Yeah, might be frustrating here or there, but at the end of the day, you just have to beat your group and get out of there and then beat everyone else. That's all you can focus on really.

Q. What were your emotions when you left here last year?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: It was pretty sad. It was pretty sad. I felt like my game was -- playing pretty well. At PLAYERS I didn't play great, I think a couple weeks before this. And just game still felt fine, showed up, practice rounds were good, and then you get your seed, and I think I went 0-2-1. It's defeating, but it happens. That's what match play is, right? You have to be prepared to beat your guy every single day, and I just was giving away way too many mistakes, and in match play you just can't do that.

Q. You won the PGA Championship for your first major; I was wondering, is there a cracking the code to winning the PGA Championship? And also, what do you know about Southern Hills for the PGA here in a month or so?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I don't know if there's a code to winning major championships or winning the PGA. You just have to be ready to go win a major. And you have to embrace that you're going to be playing against the best in the world, which is what we do every week, but on a little bigger stage.

As it comes to Southern Hills, I know nothing about it. I'll show up -- as any other week, show up Sunday night, practice Monday through Wednesday and be ready by Thursday.

Q. Will you go up early?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No, I've actually never done that at any event I've played. I do my prep, my Monday through Wednesday, and I think I do a pretty good job, and it hasn't hurt me since.

Q. Speaking of match play, can you think back to the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you about this particular format?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: To be honest, no. Like I don't really -- I haven't really gotten advice as it comes to match play. I don't really go and ask, but it's just different. You want to put that pressure on those guys. You never want to give away shots. And that's the biggest thing what I learned last year is I was three-putting, I was making stupid bogeys, I was putting myself in bad positions when I might have been in the middle of the fairway, and sometimes when you force issues, sometimes it's risk-reward. Sometimes you get away with it and sometimes you don't, and I just compounded those mistakes, and that's what you can't do.

Q. Did the Ryder Cup teach you anything? Is there any lessons you took? I know it wasn't the first time you had played match play.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I wouldn't say it taught me anything, but it just taught me -- I guess I embraced what the Ryder Cup was. I was there to enjoy it but to just win. That's what we wanted to do. When I think back to my amateur team events, all we cared about was winning especially at the Walker Cup. We were doing it for our captain, Spider Miller, and I know he wanted that revenge. He wanted it from the previous two years when he had lost, and we were so focused on winning. And sometimes just like the Ryder Cup, you want to win. These weeks just like this week, I want to win and I've got to make sure I focus on that.

Q. You've been so consistent and now a couple weeks that you've struggled a little bit. You said it was maybe your putter. Match play and being a little more aggressive with the putter, does that maybe knock you out of a funk like maybe what you've been going through or could this help, just a different mindset?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, you put it as a funk; I put it as a learning experience. What's weird about the past couple weeks from PLAYERS and Valspar is that I felt some of the best golf I had felt warming up and getting ready for the tournament. But then there are just like little pieces that when I actually tee it up on Thursday that I'm missing from when I compare it to a really good round or a really good tournament.

It's so frustrating because I feel like I can hit all those shots but then they're just not put together.

I wouldn't say it's like a little funk. For me it's just making sure I wake up and realize, okay, I can't take anything for granted out here. I have done that in the past, and I hate myself for doing that, but sometimes -- this is a little different. This is just not thinking through some shots, not going through the full process of actually doing my due diligence when I'm over the shot.

In a format like this, I can't get lazy just because it's match play. If I miss that putt, that doesn't mean I just am carefree. I want to go out there and give it all I got and see what happens.

Q. Have you been doing anything different with your putting, practice, drills, over the last couple of weeks to kind of hopefully change whatever it is?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No, I mean, it -- putting is going to be streaky. I'm going to have good weeks, I'm going to have bad weeks. And what I have to realize is like I have a couple bad weeks, I'm not going to go search for something. I'm not going to go change my grip. I still trust what I'm doing. It's just how do we get a little more consistent rather than have a couple of weeks like the past.

Q. Collin, Scottie Scheffler finally broke through this year in a big way and won a couple. Do you see anything different in his play now that he's in the winner's circle and does it take different criteria to win a major than it does just any tournament?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: You know, as it relates to Scottie's game, I don't think anything has changed. Scottie has always been a great player since I've known him. I've known him for 10 years now, or over that. He's always been a good player, and he's doing the same thing, and that's what happens. You just have to keep knocking at the door. You just have to keep believing in what you're doing. And sometimes you'll get that one break or you'll get those couple breaks on the last nine holes to go your way, and there you are holding the trophy at the end of the day.

So that's what happened, right? So he's just finding this little hot streak and he's rolling with it, and hopefully I find my shot streak pretty soon, too.

As it relates to a major, you just can't make as many mistakes. When you do make mistakes, they're just that blown up when you're out on a major championship type of golf course, especially on a Sunday and you feel that pressure, you know what's at stake. There's no secret recipe for winning them.

Q. A couple weeks ago you had some weather at THE PLAYERS. It might have been a little tricky to assess exactly where your game was based on your scores just because of that. This week as everybody says, you can play great and lose, you can play sort of mediocre and win. What is it like this week trying to get an accurate assessment of your game?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, obviously in two weeks we have the Masters, and you want your game to be as good as possible for the first major of the year. I think it's going back to what I said a little bit earlier was I feel like my golf game is there. I just need to be mentally making sure I go through every process when I'm out there. If I lose, I lose, and if I feel like I've played a great golf game and I lose to someone that's made more birdies than me, what can I do.

If I feel like I've given away shots and I'm giving them a hole or I'm giving them the win, that hurts. You have to assess that after the week and be like, okay, at a course like Augusta, you can't give away those shots. I can't be putting myself short sided, down a slope, in a bunker, whatever it may be. But if I feel like I'm playing well, we show up, take a week off, show up in two weeks at Augusta and feel as great as ever.

That's why over the past few weeks even though the scores haven't been there, I feel like I'm close. It's making me be aware of things that I need to be on top of my game for for when I do start playing a little bit better hopefully.

Q. You said earlier that you've never gone to a tournament early. Does that include the Masters?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yes.

Q. Have you made any scouting trips there other than that week?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No.

Q. And then thirdly, what have you learned the first two years there that you're going to put into play?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, I think the first two years when I was there, I tried playing a draw type golf game, and obviously that's not me. And everyone says you have to play a draw there and you don't. I will 100 percent believe for the rest of my career that you don't have to play a draw on every hole. There are some holes where you absolutely have to hit a draw or have to hook the ball, but there are holes out there where there's a straight fairway -- I was trying to hit a super neutral or almost a slight draw when there was no need to. I could aim left and play my cut.

It forced me to hit these shots that I wasn't comfortable with and I didn't know my misses and then my misses were even a bigger dispersion, and it just made golf harder to play. I've got to stick to my strengths of what I can do. Look, there are guys that have hit cuts there that have won, so it's possible.