SENTRY TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

January 7, 2023

Collin Morikawa

Plantation Course at Kapalua

Quick Quotes

Q. What's the best meal you've had this week?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Last night's dinner from the Commish and the TOUR at Sansei was really nice. Ate a lot, a lot of sushi and probably stuffed myself too much. But just everything's great. It's kind of just my vibe of food. A lot of rice, a lot of meat, no veggies. Right on target.

Q. Well attended, I take it?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome. It's funny because I keep seeing the same chef and the chef is like, Welcome back, and me just thinking to myself, it's always nice to start your year in Maui and got to earn it.

Q. Well, you're feasting on this golf course. How is that for a line? But talk about how well you're playing and how comfortable you are.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, it's been pretty simple today. Kind of over the past three days, is where I've been looking is kind of where the ball's been going. I kind of know what is doing right and when I hit a bad shot, kind of what the mistake was. That's the biggest thing. That's what I was kind of hindering on is brining in a couple more coaches, just knowing a little bit more about what's going on.

Sometimes I think you do, and you do. You know enough. But it really factors in now if I can go back to any shot today and just really go through like, was the mental process right, was the routine good, what was off a little bit here or there and go from there.

Q. Golf's never easy, but you seem comfortable; is that accurate?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah. It's nice when you feel like that, so just kind of keep plugging along.

Q. How much were you paying attention to where people were on the leaderboard today?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah. No, I definitely saw the scores. I think by the time we got to 5, Max had been I think around 7-, 8-under. Billy, I think, posted 9-under. That's what this course is going to provide. I think as guys play it more often, you see -- I mean, today was kind of similar winds to what we saw yesterday. You just get familiar with what's going to happen and where the balls are going to be, what you're going to hit into these holes.

I think tomorrow's going to kind of be the same with maybe a little less wind. So we know there's going to be a lot of birdies and you just got to keep giving yourself chances.

Q. Is there a target score you ever pick out before a round?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Not really. At the beginning of the week, it was funny, I was looking at the locker room and you see the champion lockers and you go through the scores and you see Cam's 34-under last year. That would be a nice target. We're still pretty far away. But I think tomorrow it's just really take it hole by hole and just kind of go from there.

Q. What was the shot or putt that made you the happiest today?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: The happiest? The putt on 6, weirdly enough. I think I hit about, not to that exact pin. It was kind of one of the practice round pins. I probably hit like 35, 40 putts and I couldn't make it. I mean, I had my plates down during the practice round. Like, no one was around me, and I just couldn't make it. It was going left. It was going right. I hit it a little firmer than what I wanted, but making that putt was just like, man, like I spent maybe 25 minutes on that green just hitting that one putt, for no reason. The pin's different. Everything's different. But it was nice to see that one go in.

Q. How big was the one the par save at 10?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: It was huge. The chip wasn't far off. It was just kind of just a little short, just kind of lost a little speed coming through the shot.

It was nice to kind of see Scotty's putt and then just that one just good pace, dove hard, and that, those kind of keep the rounds going. I think I was 4-under at that time. You drop a shot there, 11's not easy pin, 12 is not a gimmie birdie. You still got to hit good shots. I think neither of us made birdie. So it was nice to get through 10 with that par.

Q. Are you a surfer at all?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No. I wish. That would be nice.

Q. When you have a chance to win a tournament, how much more excited are you to get to the golf course knowing you're playing well, that you have a chance? Of course in this case you've got a pretty nice lead.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: You're always excited to get to the golf course because whether you're first or you're last, you're always like, you get to the final round excited to just learn something.

But tomorrow it's not about learning. I'm going to put kind of everything I've been through and everything I've done in the past and just kind of use that to my advantage hopefully and just start hole 1 and go strong for 18. It's a long day out there. It's a lot of golf. Just kind go on past experiences to get me through tomorrow.

Q. Fair to say you're hungry for a victory?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, that would be an understatement.

Q. Would it? Okay. Does it feel like it's been awhile?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, it has. I think just because what we talked on yesterday is like last year felt so long. That kind of middle of the season really from PLAYERS all the way through playoffs just felt like it never ended. It was just like I play a tournament, you get back home, you play another tournament, play two more. You're always searching. It doesn't mean -- when you're playing well you're still searching for something. But it's felt like awhile, especially since you see kind of my peers and friends get up to the top and, yeah, tomorrow's a big one.

Q. Is it good to be able to put some of these changes you made through the heat of battle holding a lead on the weekend?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah. I mean, these changes, they're very big because now I understand. But it's not like I'm putting completely different. I thought when I went to the saw putting grip like that that was even a bigger of a change compared to when I'm doing now because I had never putted with the saw. Like I had no clue if the ball was going to go forward. It was just a roll of the dice.

Now it's just understanding what I'm doing. So obviously I've made changes, but they have been simple changes to where like on the golf course I'm not really thinking about much.

Q. How result oriented are you compared with process or execution maybe?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I think at the end of the day for me like I'm still pretty result oriented. Winning is showing you're doing something right. At the end of the day like that's where you want to build to. There's a lot of steps to get there and I've always talked about that. You work on this piece, work on that piece to kind of put it all together.

But there's a sense of gratification with winning. If I look back at any of my wins, whether you played well in the practice round on Monday or you're playing terrible the week before or whatever, or you're playing great, you know when you come down Sunday and you come down 18 it's a different feeling. Yeah, I just can't get ahead of myself tomorrow.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the par putt on 4. For some reason it just seemed like it summed up how you feel over the putter. It wasn't going to be the end of the world if you missed it.

COLLIN MORIKAWA: It wasn't the end of the world, but it was kind of like that momentum going back to 10, same thing. Starting off, just kind of grinding, not grinding but lag putt on 1, lag putt on 2, up-and-down on 3.

4 was just weird because it looks so down grain, it looks so shiny after that hill that I was so focused on just barely getting over and I accomplished that feat.

But the par putt was just like, you know, wherever I was looking the putter was aimed there, hit it down the line, speed was great and it just matched up. I was really invested in that entire putt and that was kind of nice to see.

Q. Did you chip or putt on 10?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Chipped short, yeah.

Q. What's at stake tomorrow?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Winning the golf tournament. That's all it is. I think it is every time you're in these positions, just winning the golf tournament. It's nothing else. I don't care about anything else. I want to win.

I know it's going to take a lot. There's going to be a lot of guys out there that are going to be firing at pins, making a lot of birdies early on. So that's just for me to just kind of do what I've been doing, staying patient, give myself opportunities and let 'em fall.

Q. Have you taken a lead this large into a final round recently?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Hero.