DUBLIN, Ohio — Collin Morikawa figured his tournament was over if he did not make a 5-foot par putt on the 15th hole at Muirfield Village. As it turned out, the fun was just starting.
Still three shots behind Justin Thomas with three holes to play, Morikawa made only one birdie, but it was enough for a six-under-par 66 to force a playoff.
The three times he played the 18th hole on Sunday, he twice could only watch as Thomas missed 10-foot putts for the win. The other time, Morikawa had to make a 25-foot putt to keep playing.
The only dull moment at the Workday Charity Open was at the end, when Morikawa took two putts for par from just inside 10 feet to beat Thomas on the third playoff hole and win for the second time in his PGA Tour career.
Morikawa never looked like the winner until it was over. Thomas had 10 straight one-putt greens, the last one a 25-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th for the three-shot lead with three holes to play. And while he made two bogeys for a 69 that allowed for a playoff, he had reason to think it was over when he made a 50-foot birdie putt from the back of the 18th green on the first extra hole.
“It was crazy,” Morikawa said.
It was a wild ride for Thomas, too. He lost a two-shot lead at the start in three holes. He ran off four straight birdies and had 10 consecutive one-putts to build his lead through 15 holes.
“It’s completely unacceptable to give up a three-shot lead with three to go,” Thomas said. “I’m upset, I’m disappointed in myself.”
Thomas did not do anything terribly wrong — a tee shot in the thick collar on the par-3 16th that led to bogey, a 12-foot birdie attempt on the 17th that narrowly missed, and a tee shot that found a bunker on the 18th and led to another bogey and a 69. He and Morikawa finished at 19-under 269.
Viktor Hovland of Norway had a 71 and finished alone in third, four shots behind. His hopes ended with two shots — he found a bunker from the 10th fairway for bogey, and hit a driver on the reachable 14th that missed by only about 5 feet, enough for the ball to slowly tumble down the bank and into the water.
This was a big win for the 23-year-old Morikawa, who in his 13 months since graduating from the University of California has established a reputation for consistency. His only previous tour victory was at an event with a relatively weak field last summer. The Workday Charity Open featured five of the top 10 players in the world.
“This is a huge kind of steppingstone,” said Morikawa, who goes to No. 13 in the rankings, one spot ahead of Tiger Woods. “We got No. 1 out of the way. We got No. 2. Let the gates just open and let’s keep going.”
It was Morikawa’s second playoff since the PGA Tour returned on June 11 from the coronavirus pandemic. He lost on the first extra hole at Colonial by missing a 3-foot putt. He had a 2-foot putt in regulation on Sunday that caught the left edge of the cup and swirled in. “My heartbeat must have skipped a billion times,” Morikawa said.
The only thing missing for him was a handshake from Jack Nicklaus. He will be there this coming week for the Memorial, as the PGA Tour stays at Muirfield Village.
Source: Golf - nytimes.com
