CHARLES SCHWAB CHALLENGE

May 25, 2022

Collin Morikawa

Colonial CC

Press Conference

DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome Collin Morikawa to the media center here at the Charles Schwab Challenge. You're making your third start here at Colonial and coming off a runner-up in 2020. Just some thoughts on being back here at Colonial this week and kind of how you're feeling about your game.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, love this place. I mean, I've been here since 2018 kind of for the Hogan Award, and I was able to speak on Monday at the Hogan Award again to kind of bring back some good memories and talk to a few college kids who are the best in the world. To just kind of bring back those memories, I was able to draw back on a lot of things that I did in college that I kind of hoped to play and bring to the golf course and this tournament because it's been a little off as of late.

I've just been a little bit frustrated, but it was kind of cool to see what Bones had to say to JT last week because a lot of us, even though we don't know it, sometimes we're all going through the same issue. You just set really high standards for yourself, and at the end of it it's just let's go out and play golf. Game has felt good, practice has felt good, but I've said that for the past two months, and the results really haven't been there.

I'm just going to go out and focus on the little processes to get to playing some good golf.

DOUG MILNE: It has been a good year. I know you've got things you want to work on, but six top-10 finishes including a fifth most recently at the Masters. Are there some things that you're tweaking or that kind of have your attention about your game more than others?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: You know, it kind of varies by week, depending on what course you're at and what it challenges, what part of your game. For me, my ball-striking really hasn't been there to where I want it and where I feel comfortable, and then just putting. Still putting, trying to feel a little more comfortable over putts and chips.

I could talk about every aspect of my game, but there's really no need to. That's just what we do.

Every week is different, so hopefully I just kind of find a couple clicks over the past couple days and today to kind of get ready for tomorrow.

Q. Coming off a major week and how much work and whatnot goes into that, how do you kind of recoup and get ready on a short week and get ready for this tournament?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, when you have a finish like I did last week, it kind of puts you into a position where you want to grind. I want to keep grinding even more. I'm not satisfied with how I played last week, and I want to figure it out, especially at two places coming up, here at Colonial and next week at Muirfield, that I've had success, I've played well at. I feel like they're courses that I've enjoyed throughout the years, so hopefully something is just kind of able to spark, whether it's just remembering some past shots, being at a place that I like to be at.

There's a lot that's involved that sometimes is out of your control, but I want to be in control of the things that's in front of me, my swing, my golf game, and hopefully we can just kind of piece together a few things for the start of tomorrow.

Q. Obviously you almost won here two years ago in 2020 and then you had two wins. I want to say it was the Workday and then you had the PGA. Just looking back to that tournament here, how much motivation did you find from that, almost getting it done here?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, I mean, it sucked to miss that three-and-a-half-, four-footer, right, but it taught me so much, and it taught me a lot, especially when I did win the Workday tournament at Muirfield in a playoff against JT like that, like I didn't want to lose that playoff no matter what it took.

Obviously he made a big putt on me, I made a putt after him, but I was going to do whatever it took to just not get ahead of myself, and that kind of progressed and just kept telling me it's not over until it's over. That's the biggest issue I made two years ago is I was like, oh, we're going to make this three-and-a-half-footer, go on to the next hole, and there it was, tournament was over, lost, finished second.

That taught me a lot even now, and I still have to remember that because sometimes you do get a little lazy and sometimes you forget about a couple things that you don't want that to happen just for you to remember it again. It already happened once. Hopefully I learned again from it.

Q. There was a lot of discussion last week about the sand in the bunkers and how it was just different than what you find week in and week out. Probably a little bit more of a penalty. Do you have any thoughts on if that was good or bad?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, I'm kind of indifferent. I think every week -- I can't think of a golf course where the next week is exactly the same. Like for me, I'm always like trying to test out the sand just like how we know we're going to play in different grasses. I think it's just a sand that none of us have ever seen, and it was a lot harder to get a lot more spin. You didn't really see the clippy sand shots that some guys can always hit.

So no, I think it played fair. Like you weren't getting bad lies. I wasn't getting bad lies. I was getting good lies in the bunkers. I've seen places where you see someone after they rake it or even in the morning when they rake it and you're already getting a bad lie. Maybe that's a little more penal than I think last week. Last week you got good lies. It was just harder to play out of them.

Which in reality it just makes you play to certain parts of the green a little bit more, and sometimes you get short sided, and it's going to play the penalty it should.

DOUG MILNE: Collin, thanks for your time. We appreciate it and certainly wish you the best of luck this week.