THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 21, 2022

Collin Morikawa

Quail Hollow Club

Press Conference

Q. (On his putter) Is it new?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Two weeks old.

Q. Just some off-season testing or what?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: So ever since the end of senior year, kind of spring of senior year, I switched to a longer putter, a little more upright. Got standing taller. If you look at when I first turned pro, I was still standing really tall, like even with all my putters. Switched to the claw grip or the saw grip and felt good for almost a year. Then I just kind of got out of sorts, and like heading into Playoffs, it just never felt comfortable.

Sometimes you just get in that little route of when you're not comfortable, nothing is going in. That's how you kind build of -- seeing good results is confidence, and that confidence wasn't there, so I switched to conventional during post season, during the Playoffs, and then kind of a few weeks after that, talking to a few guys at home in Vegas, playing a lot, just kind of noticed how they're putting, and I just wanted to try something different. So I got a little flatter, got my body a little more relaxed, and I was kind of able to have that rocking feeling that people always talk about putting that I've never felt in my life, which is a weird thing.

But it still is a test. I wish I'd figured this out earlier, but with us, it's nonstop. It's go, go, go. We're used to kind of trying and putting in new things early on. It just sits really nicely for me, and hopefully I can just kind of take it back and let it go.

Q. So is the new putter mostly because of the setup adjustments?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, a lot of it was because of setup adjustments. I went to the Soto rather than Juno. I wanted the look. Then I was just messing around and messing around with like three different necks just to see how my hands sat if they were at the same lie angle, and go from there.

Q. Different top line on it, as well. Usually you go with the single sight now, now you have the dot on there?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, we just haven't had time to kind of get the line perfectly how I want it. I think with where my eyes are sitting and how it's sitting down, I think we might have milled it in a little too deep and just the way the angle sits when it's sitting down, the way my eyes look at it, it doesn't look as straight as it should be.

That's something we'll kind of mess around with probably after this week, but they made a bunch of putters, and it was never a thought. It was more about let's get this right, looking good and feeling good in my hands.

Q. So no Tiger inspiration there?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No, but hopefully we can putt like him. That would be nice.

Q. Is it a different length than the previous one?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, it's a half inch shorter. So half inch shorter, everything is more relaxed. Everything before was just way higher, just everything was so rigid. I look at some of my favorite putters out on TOUR, it doesn't mean you can't putt like that, I just think for me, I haven't seen the consistency that I want, so this is a path that just kind of popped in my head one day, and I was like, let's roll with it and see what happens.

Q. How is the fade going? Have you got complete confidence in it? Still a work in progress?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: It's definitely back. Playoffs it felt a lot better. I did a lot of work the week before Memphis, and I was able to put together maybe -- let's call it two to three rounds throughout those Playoffs every tournament.

The problem is we play four-round tournaments, and I've got to show up. That kind of showed.

I'd say overall, like it's feeling really good. After the Playoffs I made even more improvements to get it back. I'd say we're really close. It's just kind of now seeing the results. Seeing results obviously boosts your confidence. It's how do you just kind of jump out ahead and say what we're doing is right, and hopefully what I'm doing is right.

Q. What's the hardest part? Is it getting it started where you're looking, or is it more having it to end up where it needs to end up? There's a difference there, too.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, look, when I'm hitting the fade, I know what my misses are going to be. That's what I didn't know for a good majority of this year is that I didn't know where I was missing, but these cuts have been coming back and they've been starting on line and finishing on line. It's how I've seen it. It's just I couldn't see that before.

When I show up to these holes and see it a certain way and the ball is not doing that, there's a reason. Thankfully they're matching up a little bit better.

Q. Has there been anything with the clubs or the balls? We know the balls fly so much straighter; that's part of the problem sometimes, too, isn't it?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No, I mean, I didn't make any changes. It was really just kind of me, my swing and my body. Just kind of figuring out small things. The amount of videos I've watched since college on my phone, all these plane flights and everything, all these off times, just a lot of video watching. Sometimes it's really hard. I'm thankful we figured something out and we kind of kept going on.

Q. You've had a variety of different approaches to putting since you came on TOUR. How has your perspective on your putting changed? Do you see a lot of growth there or are you just kind of changing things as it goes along?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, I think the idea for me is to be consistent. I've been able to show that I can get hot and I can putt well. The problem is that so far it's been sparingly, right. It's been here and there. It might be one good round, but it's not over a course of a tournament, or it's over the course of two tournaments and then it kind of disappears.

I just need to become a little more consistent putter, and a lot of it has to do with my speed, just kind of nailing those five-foot-and-in putts. If I'm making more of those, it's going to be so much more beneficial on every aspect of my game. It's going to ease off chipping, it's going to ease off lag putting. At the end of the day, what I'm trying to do is just become a more consistent putter.

Right now we're making a switch and we're trying something new. I did it with the saw grip say a year and a half ago, and it worked out, and hopefully with this we're heading down the right path, as well.

Q. Are you one that usually gets first-tee jitters?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No. I mean, to be honest, I was more nervous in my Walker Cup. I think my Walker Cup -- golf-wise my Walker Cup tee shot on 1 was the most nervous I've been, even compared to last year at the Ryder Cup, which is weird, but I think now knowing what we do and being able to represent our country a couple times here and there throughout amateur golf, it's just such a big honor that we just want to come out here and win.

I'm going to try and do everything I can, put every piece of effort into winning, so when you're out there on that first tee, for me, like I'm excited. I'm ready to go. It's like, how do you calm that down, not just really the nerves but just the excitement.

Q. Is there a strategy you have for calming down?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I think it's just talking to yourself, talking to your caddie, just going through your regular routine. When you're that excited and that jittery and that off the charts, you kind of just have to go through your routine. Normally you end up skipping your routines, but if you just take one extra second, it helps a lot.

Q. Is there anything else like that in golf, like that experience of walking to the first tee in a team event?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No. I mean, not in team event. We only get one a year, or at least the U.S. guys.

There really isn't. They're so different. I think when you see -- I think the coolest thing when you have these team events is guys are willing to share maybe a secret here and there -- unless you're best friends with them and kind of played with them every single day, you just get to hear a little bit more about how everyone does it. It's always nice to hear. It's refreshing.

I love asking all the captains how they've done it in the past. Stricker has been teaching us how to chip, I think, for the last two and a half days.

It doesn't mean it's the right way, right, but it's just another perspective that we can look at, and I think that's the biggest thing is that we just kind of bring all this knowledge in to just help us, and it's been really cool of a week to hear that.

Q. Statistically you're one of the best from 200 to 225 approach shots. How do you set up your equipment to effectively hit the ball from that far on to the green, keep it on the green?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: That's nice. I don't know. I really don't know.

Let's see, 200, so we're talking about 5-iron and out. I think it's just gapping distances. At the end of the day I think from that far of a distance, if you put it within 25 feet, you're hitting a great shot. We're not pin seeking as much as we would if we were -- I like 8-irons, so let's say an 8-iron from 160.

I think when it comes down to it, it's just feeling comfortable with the clubs you have. So when you go out -- like I've got the P7MCs with the 5-iron and I've got a 770 4-iron. It's all about gapping everything and making sure you have all these gaps. With the 770 4-iron, I can't work it as much, but that allows me to go for par-5s and that allows me from 230 out to aim at the middle of the green and hopefully miss a little bit here and a little bit there and finding the middle of the green and having good distance control.

I've been able to have a lot of 5-woods in over the past year and a half. I think 5-wood is like cheating. The thing goes straight up in the air and the wind doesn't touch it as much as you might think. It's an amazing club.

I don't know, I think maybe because I hit it shorter, maybe I have more 200-plus-yard shots out, but to be honest, I think anytime I have an iron in my hand, even that 5-wood, I feel very comfortable, especially when I'm swinging well.

I don't treat it like anything else. I just treat it like another club and figure out where I want to hit it and kind of know the dispersion. I think that's the biggest thing, knowing where you're going to miss, and you can kind of get away with those ones that look bad and end up all right.

Q. With that split set, blades, cavity backs, where do you decide to make that cutoff?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, for a while I had it all the way up to 6-iron with the blades, and then put in the 7MC, I put in the cavity backs for the 6-iron, so now I've got 6 and 5, and then I've got the 770 for the 4. A lot of it has to do with height, like height control and trajectory kind of off the face, launch angle.

There's a certain window I like to see. Obviously with the blade obviously it's not as forgiving, but for me at least it doesn't launch as high. It's kind of cool, I went to the kingdom last year to mess around with some putters and we were messing around with some irons, and just going through, I've never -- I'm known for my ball-striking and my irons, but I've never gone in depth and learned about why a certain iron does what it does.

I changed into these cavity backs and MCs at the Open last year because it felt good and I could find center face, but I wanted to know why, so we were able to kind of deep dive into figuring out why. That's what's kind of cool is that I learned so much about drivers because our drivers change every year. I've learned so much about wedges, learned so much about the grinds, but I never did that about irons.

For me it's all about launch control, seeing it out that window, and if I can see it out that window, that's what it does. I use that 6 and 5 because it launches out of a better window. From that distance, it's kind of kind of err on the higher side just to get a little more height on it.

Q. What lob wedge are you going with this week?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Tiger, TW, TaylorMade MG3.

Q. I have a question about the PGA2K game. This is the first time you get to be in a video game. I didn't know if you played the old Tiger Woods games growing up. What's that mean to you, and is that something as a kid you really thought, oh, this would be awesome to be --

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, when I got the offer to be in the 2K23 I had to say yes. You can't say no. I think the coolest part of it, it's not even playing yourself. I think like for my friends it would be cool to play me, but I think the coolest part is really putting on the suit and going through the process of what other athletes have done. So when you see other athletes like put it on for basketball, right, they do what they do and then you show up in the game, and sometimes it doesn't end up like exactly, but putting on the suit and having all the dots and having everything captured like that, I think that was the coolest part of like the entire process.

But obviously the game came out great. I was able to see it during East Lake when they had their little event there.

Yeah, it's an honor. It's really cool. Never would have thought at 25 I'd be in a video game for sure.

Q. If you're playing with your friends, are you playing as yourself or Tiger?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I'm playing as myself. I think that would be bad for me if I didn't play as myself. But I'd want to play as myself. I don't want to play as anyone else.

Q. Another thing is Autumn Solesbee was out. She was following you around for a little bit. I was talking with her dad about a moment you guys had at the Drive, Chip & Putt contest. If you want to talk about that.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, I remember when I was heading over for the Masters this year, and I was watching a little bit of the Drive, Chip & Putt, and obviously she had other story about being adopted, I believe, and just everything she's gone through, and that just kind of -- for some reason, I thought it was an amazing story. I just thought, what a sweet kid. She was smiling so much, just loved, loved being there.

It's so tough to see so many kids like that because look, we got to talk to the Junior Presidents Cup team and you do all this, and you can just tell certain ones that like enjoy what they're doing, and that's hard. It's hard when you have so many goals ahead and you want to accomplish things, but you're not enjoying the moment. It pulls you out.

It just kind of resonated with me, so I think it was one of our practice rounds, I saw her off to the side of the ropes off 1 tee and just wanted to say congratulations. I think she won. Just wanted to say congrats and introduce myself, and they reached out saying they were going to be out here, so it's pretty cool still to see her with a massive smile, just having fun. That's what it's about. There's so many things that we can get distracted with. It's good to see that perspective.

Q. How does the team/country aspect of this tournament kind of affect the emotions and the feeling when you play out there?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: You know, it pushes us. I think it pushes us to just be our best. Anytime you're able to put the red, white and blue on, we just find that extra little gear that sometimes you're looking for on a Thursday or Friday or another regular PGA TOUR tournament.

You just want to do your best, and you want to get that point. You want to do whatever it takes to get that point. That should be the mentality when you're out there playing. You should do whatever you can to get that birdie or get that par or whatever it is.

But now we've got other guys, not just the other 11 guys on our team. We've got caddies, we've got teammates, we've got captains, we've got family.

It's not added pressure. It's just a bigger team that we represent. You want to do everything you can to just represent them well, and it just doesn't stop there.

It goes on to the fans. It goes on to everyone else that's watching and rooting for us. It's one of the most exciting things you can have and do as a professional golfer.

Q. If you think back to the Ryder Cup last fall, you guys opened up a pretty big lead on Saturday. What was the mindset of the team to kind of avoid getting complacent when you're in that position?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I think Pat said to get to 20. I think we got to 19, but I think our goal was to get to 20. I don't know how many we had to win to get to 20, but look, at the end of the day, the goal is to win. Sometimes you have to set your goals differently to push guys in a different way, get that mindset that everyone should have.

I think for all of us this week, it's just get the job done in every single match. Whatever you are, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, go win that point in that match.

But I think when it comes down to that, it's the same thing. We knew we were very close to winning. We had a lead. But let's go get it to 20. Everyone needs to do their job to get to 20.

Yeah, shoot, this is the most competitive guys that I've met. I think all professional athletes are competitive, but when you put us, especially golfers who are so individualized, when you put us in a room together, we're so self-driven that complacency really isn't a thing unless we -- people everyone keeps saying this and this and this, but in the heart we all know it comes within us, and we push ourselves to be the best for sure.

Q. Is there going to be a bragging rights type of situation among the 12, earn the most points, don't be the guy who earns the fewest points?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No. Look, I'll speak as a rookie last year at the Ryder Cup. Obviously I'm a rookie here, but it feels a little different. As a rookie last year, I was like, man, I hope to get a point. Let's just get our point. When we won the first match, I'm like, okay, here we go, we got our feet wet, let's keep moving.

No, there's no bragging rights. At the end of the day, we just want to win. There's no other feeling like it. You get one of these every other year. You don't want that to drag. Yeah, do everything it takes.

Q. Who talks the most smack in your team room?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Kis.

Q. He was talking smack when I was just talking to him.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: It's Kis. He can do it. He feels comfortable, and that's what's great. I think everyone feels comfortable on this team, and when you're able to have that, guys kind of bond, it's a lot -- the flow of things just goes. No one is uncomfortable. No one is kind of hiding behind the curtain, even us young guys. It's kind of go with the flow and just keep moving on.

Q. Do you guys give him a hard time with being the old man in the room?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, but he knows it. The problem is we keep giving him -- if we keep giving him a hard time, he's just going to take it and he's going to say, look what I'm doing at -- I don't even know how old he is. He's probably not even that old.

Q. 38.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: He's 38, and Cam Young is the youngest guy, so that's only 13 years. That's not that bad.

Q. I love hearing how much you guys love this whole team aspect of it, but because this is such an individualized sport, what's the biggest challenge going from being an individual for so long throughout the year to now doing something where it's all about the team?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I think the biggest thing is just really when we're out there like playing different formats that we're not used to. At the end of the day, I think all of us practice, we all play best ball. We're always playing at home 2v2 matches. Alternate shot, I would say none of us ever play other than when we're here.

But I would say that's the biggest thing. At the end of the day we still need to hit our shots. We still need to do what we do to get prepared for a tournament, and the captains do a really good job kind of pushing aside as much as they can to make sure we're sticking to our routines. That's the biggest thing is we've got our routines down from when we show up on a Sunday or a Monday at a tournament. Obviously with team events you have team outings, you have team meetings, you have dinners, all this stuff. They do such a good job last year at the Ryder Cup, this year here at the Presidents Cup.

Stricker and Davis Love, my two captains, have done -- they get a lot of credit for making our lives a lot easier on these weeks and just allowing us to go out and do what we do best, and that's play golf.

Q. Your playing partner, what would they say is the best part of your game that you bring to the team aspect, and what would you say about them? What is their best?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: That's so sneaky. That just gives it away. I think people can say the best part about my game is my iron play. The other person, they're just a great-looking guy. (Laughter).

Good luck figuring that one out. That's fair, right? They're a great-looking guy. Whoever you assume is going to be a great-looking guy.

Q. That would be like me winning skinniest kid at fat camp.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I don't know, there's always a chance.

Q. What are you most looking forward to this week starting on Thursday?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I think just when that energy hits you. Right when you get to that first tee, you're excited when you wake up, you're getting ready, but once you get to that first tee and you're like, let's go, things click. Things just -- everything is in motion. You're just going. It's flowing. Hopefully you can get in a good rhythm with your partner and start winning some points.

Q. Have you ever looked or had conversations about what the 12 best on the PGA TOUR versus the 12 best on LIV Golf would look like?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No. To be honest, a lot of those guys, they've gone and they've made the decision, and I really haven't thought about them, and there's a couple of the guys that I definitely miss having around. But it's a -- I think it's just like anything in life, there's a cycle. Golf has a long lifespan. Guys stay for a long time, and there's just a cycle of new guys coming in, old guys coming out. It's a repeating cycle, but it's never anything I've really given thought to because I've got a million other things I've got to worry about, and my wedding.

Q. Who are the guys you miss?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I miss DJ. I'll be honest. Obviously last year at the Ryder Cup he was amazing, but just -- he's just a good guy to hang around. Him and A.J.

Q. What's Freddy Couples like as an assistant captain?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: He's amazing. I had never met him until last year at the Ryder Cup. He's just the most laid-back, great guy. Has a million stories that he can tell. Not saying that the other captains don't have a million stories, but he's got a million and one great ones.

It just kind of keeps everyone going. That's the thing, I talk about this kind of flow of the team and just everyone feeling comfortable. He just kind of keeps that vibe going, and it's just so nice because it takes you away from everything. It takes you away from 12 best in the U.S. playing at the Presidents Cup. These are things you dream about. He just takes it to a surface level of we're just here hanging out as guys; we're really good at golf; let's go play. You guys are freaking good. We love seeing great shots and we love pulling them off.

Q. What's the story he's told you that you've already told your friends, like I can't believe I just heard that?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I heard one this week but I'm not going to tell.