Morikawa, Collin (1997- )

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      The Players to Watch at the U.S. Open

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      The Open starts this week, and these are the five players, including Phil Mickelson, to keep your eyes on.In April, history was made at Augusta National Golf Club when Hideki Matsuyama became the first Japanese male golfer to win a major championship. As other contenders at the Masters faltered, Matsuyama shot a seven-under 65 in the third round for a 4-shot lead heading into Sunday. He won by a stroke.In May, history was made again in the P.G.A. Championship when Phil Mickelson, 50, became the oldest golfer to win a major. It was his sixth major title.Both players have never won the United States Open, but have finished second. If either of them captures this week’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, history will be made again, Matsuyama as the first Japanese player to win the Open and Mickelson as the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam.Here are the players, including Mickelson, to watch at the Open, the third major of the year.Phil MickelsonAfter he won last month’s P.G.A. Championship, how can one not keep on eye on the now 51-year-old Mickelson?Mickelson’s failure to win this tournament has been well chronicled; he has finished second a record six times. None was more heartbreaking than the collapse in 2006 when a par on the final hole would have given him the championship. He ended up with a double bogey, losing by one stroke to Geoff Ogilvy.Mickelson, a San Diego native who has played Torrey Pines countless times, will likely hit his share of poor shots this week. He will also likely hit his share of wonderful shots. In other words, he will be the same person golf fans have come to expect. It will be great theater no matter what happens.Tannen Maury/EPA, via ShutterstockJon RahmRahm, leading by six strokes after three rounds, was well on his way to a victory at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio about two weeks ago when he tested positive for Covid-19. He immediately withdrew. Rahm was in isolation until June 12, when he had two negative Covid tests in a 24-hour period.The course certainly seems to fit his game. His first tour triumph was in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in 2017, where he recorded two eagles on the final six holes. The second eagle came on No. 18 when he made a 60-foot putt from the fringe, capping a seven-under 65. Earlier this year, Rahm tied for seventh at the Farmers.Rahm, the No. 3-ranked player in the world, has not won since the BMW Championship last August, but has been in good form for most of the year. Including the Genesis Invitational in February, where he tied for fifth, he has finished in the top 10 in six of his last 10 starts.He’ll have to keep his emotions in check when things go wrong, which they often do at the Open. Bogeys will come. The key will be to avoid any double bogeys or worse. Rahm, 26, is high on the list of the best players in the game who have not won a major.Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesBrooks KoepkaForget about the way he struggled in the final round of the P.G.A. after he seized the lead from Mickelson. Koepka, who shot a two-over 74 and finished in a tie for second, was making only his third start since knee surgery in March.Koepka, ranked No. 10, seems to always be in contention in the majors.In his last 20 majors, going back to the 2015 British Open, he has finished in the top 10 13 times, including four victories and three seconds. If he were to win this week, Koepka, 31, would become only the 20th player to capture at least five majors.It has been an up-and-down year for Koepka, who won the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February. He has missed the cut in five of nine tournaments.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesDustin JohnsonGranted, Johnson, 36, hasn’t been on his game in recent months.He has recorded only one top 10 — a tie for 10th in last week’s Palmetto Championship at Congaree in South Carolina — since he finished in a tie for eighth at the Genesis Invitational. Worse yet, he missed the cut in the Masters and the P.G.A. In four rounds at those two majors, he failed to shoot lower than a 74.Johnson is the game’s No. 1-ranked player, and by a good margin. In South Carolina, he was in contention on the back nine on Sunday before he made a triple bogey on No. 16.Johnson has played extremely well in previous Opens. In addition to winning the 2016 championship, he has posted five other top 10s, including a tie for sixth last year.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesCollin MorikawaAfter his performance in the Memorial Tournament, where he lost in a playoff to Patrick Cantlay, Morikawa is now ranked No. 4, his highest. At 24, his future is very bright.He has been on a roll since the Masters. In his last five starts, he has finished in the top 20 four times. Morikawa has missed just one cut since October. In February, he captured the WGC-Workday Championship at the Concession in Florida by three shots.Morikawa was brilliant in last year’s P.G.A. Championship. On the drivable, 294-yard par-4 16th hole, his tee shot came to a rest only seven feet away. He made the eagle putt and went on to win by two strokes over Johnson and Paul Casey. In his final two rounds, Morikawa shot a 65 and 64. More

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      Patrick Cantlay Wins the Memorial Tournament in a One-Hole Playoff

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      Cantlay, who won the event in 2019, bested Collin Morikawa, but the weekend will be remembered for Jon Rahm’s withdrawal after he tested positive for coronavirus.DUBLIN, Ohio — The leaderboards positioned at critical junctures of a professional golf tournament are more than scoreboards. They are omnipresent yardsticks measuring the rhythm of the contest with hole-by-hole counts for the top golfers, collectively meant to tell the whole story of the event.But on Sunday, in the final round of the Memorial Tournament, there was a jarring omission from every leaderboard, a name conspicuously missing.Patrick Cantlay won the 2021 Memorial, outdueling Collin Morikawa in a seesaw battle that included one extra playoff hole, but the heart-rending story of the event will always be the Saturday evening withdrawal of Jon Rahm, who had tested positive for the coronavirus. Rahm, the defending Memorial champion, was informed of his test result at the end of the third round as he left the 18th green with a commanding six-stroke lead. The tournament continued, and Cantlay’s victory will not carry an asterisk in the PGA Tour record book, nor should it.But from the first holes played on Sunday by Cantlay and Morikawa, who became the third-round co-leaders after Rahm’s withdrawal, Rahm’s absence was recognized.When Cantlay and Morikawa, who played together, each bogeyed the first hole, there was a disquieting murmur in the crowd around the green that may have been a shared thought: If Rahm were still in the field, his lead might now have been seven strokes with 17 holes remaining.Play continued, and Cantlay and Morikawa eventually put on a good show. They made the turn still tied for the lead and extended their head-to-head match for more than two hours. The tournament did not lack drama. Its lasting image, however, will most likely be Rahm doubled over in tears.Cantlay acknowledged as much Sunday evening.“Everybody, me included, knows it would be a totally different day today if that had not happened,” Cantlay said of Rahm’s withdrawal. He continued: “Just so very unfortunate.”Asked how he would greet Rahm when he saw him next, perhaps at the United States Open that begins June 17, Cantlay said: “There’s not much to say. I don’t wish that kind of scenario on anybody. I would much rather have faced him down today and shot an extremely low round and beat him that way. But unfortunately there’s nothing I can do. I did everything I could with the cards I was dealt.”Morikawa said Rahm had the tournament “in his possession,” and added that tour players had feared and wondered about just such a situation playing out.“But that’s the thing with what-ifs,” Morikawa said, “we can only think about it and think what we’re going to do and try and do until it actually happens.”Morikawa shook his head.“But for him to have it like that, where he had a six-shot lead,” he said.Cantlay reacting to his birdie putt on No. 17. Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesA spirited crowd at Muirfield Village Golf Club in the Columbus suburbs warmed to the taut competition in the closing holes, even when soaked by rain late in the afternoon.Morikawa held the lead for most of the back nine, edging ahead on par-5 No. 11 by sinking a seven-foot birdie putt that put him back at 12 under par for the tournament, which is where he and Cantlay began the day. Cantlay threatened to catch Morikawa on the 12th hole when his 42-foot putt for birdie skirted the left edge of the hole. But on the next green, Cantlay coolly stroked a 17-foot uphill putt for a birdie that tied Morikawa.Scottie Scheffler joined Morikawa and Cantlay at the top of the leaderboard at 12 under par when he nearly holed his second shot from 131 yards at the par-4 14th hole and was left a tap-in birdie putt. Scheffler hung in for several holes before faltering with a bogey on the 18th.Morikawa regained the lead at the par-5 15th hole when he delicately pitched from a bad lie in deep rough near the green then sank an eight-foot birdie putt. That lead held up until the 17th hole when Cantlay rolled in a twisting 23-foot birdie putt to tie Morikawa, who had to make an 11-foot par putt to stay even with Cantlay.At the 18th hole, both players sliced their drives right of the fairway. From the rough, Cantlay nonetheless knocked his second shot pin high on the elevated, two-tiered final green. His try for birdie just skirted the right edge of the hole. Morikawa hit his second shot into a greenside bunker, and his recovery from the sand left him a nervy 3-foot attempt for par that he converted to send the competition to a playoff. Both golfers had shot a one-under-par 71 for 13 under par.Replaying the 18th hole, Morikawa’s approach shot from the fairway missed the green short and left, while Cantlay did the same from the right rough. Morikawa’s pitch from deep rough settled six feet from the hole. Blasting from a greenside bunker, Cantlay skittered a shot that ran 12 feet past the hole, but his right-to-left par putt tracked into the center of the hole.Morikawa’s par putt to extend the competition rolled past the left edge of the hole.Morikawa and Cantlay had nervous starts to the final round. In addition to bogeying the first hole, Morikawa bungled the par-3 fourth hole when he missed a 5-foot par putt. Morikawa birdied the fifth hole but carded his third bogey in six holes when he flubbed a chip near the sixth green and badly misjudged a 10-foot putt. He made a putt of similar length just to save bogey.From there, Morikawa found some consistency to his swing and his short game. Cantlay had a similarly uneven beginning nine, and both golfers made the turn one over par for their round.Cantlay, left, lined up his putt on No. 2 as Collin Morikawa repaired a ball divot.Tannen Maury/EPA, via ShutterstockFor Cantlay, 29, it was his fourth PGA Tour victory and the second time he has won the Memorial since 2019. Cantlay’s last victory was the Zozo Championship in October 2020. Ranked 15th in the world before the Memorial Tournament, Cantlay this year has had two top-five finishes and five in the top 20. More

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      A Hole in One Pushes Corey Conners Up the Masters Leaderboard

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      The shot by the Canadian golfer was the sixth hole in one on No. 6 in tournament history.AUGUSTA, Ga. — The old man working near No. 2 knew. He had to have known, because everyone knew.The roar on Saturday afternoon had all the hallmarks of a classic moment being made at the Masters Tournament: the sharp lift of noise as something sensational unfolded somewhere on the 345 acres, the percussion when the possible became a certainty, and then the fading echoes among the pines.“Which hole?” the man asked.The answer, it turned out, was the sixth, where Corey Conners had picked up a pair of strokes with a hole in one, the sixth there in the history of the tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. His tee shot with an eight-iron, coming right after a bogey, had landed just beyond the bunker. The ball took three bounces, each one smaller than the last. Then physics took over in a week when Augusta’s greens have been compared to glass.It took perhaps four seconds for the ball to enter the cup from the time it struck the green — so fast that Conners had scarcely moved in the tee box. He raised his arms in exultation. He leaned backward and pumped his right fist. He accepted congratulations from Collin Morikawa, his partner for the day.“It didn’t seem like the wind was helping as much as I anticipated, but, fortunately, it flew far enough,” Conners, who entered Saturday at two under par on the tournament, said afterward. “I was trying to fly it somewhere over the bunker and get it to go in, get it to go close to the hole.”“I think I hit the pin with a little bit of steam,” he added, “but it was right in the middle, so pretty special moment.”He finished Saturday with a 68, four under par, and will be in contention when the tournament holds its final round on Sunday, thanks in no small part to his star turn on No. 6.“Every shot makes a big difference,” said Charles Coody, who won the Masters in 1971 and used a five-iron for a hole in one on No. 6 the following year. “He’s been playing well of late, so I’m quite sure he’ll have a good chance.”Augusta National’s No. 16 surrenders far more holes in one than any other on the course, and it gave up one on Thursday to Tommy Fleetwood. But the sixth hole has seen more than any spot but the 16th.“It’s fairly level over there when you’re hitting from the tee and everything,” Coody said of the sixth hole on Saturday, when he watched the tournament on television. “You’re hitting into just a little of the upslope, which helps you hold the green a little better.”Conners, a 29-year-old Canadian with a single P.G.A. Tour victory to his name, has had, like so many golfers, a complicated relationship with Augusta National. In his first appearance, in 2015, he missed the cut but showed promise: a first-round 80, a second-round 69. Four years later, he tied for 46th after a misery-filled final round. In November, when the pandemic-delayed Masters was played, he scored a 65 in the second round, crucial to tying for 10th in the end.This year’s conditions were far different.“It’s got a lot more speed to it,” he said of the course on Tuesday. “The greens are rolling quicker. Had to adjust some of the notes in my book to play a lot more break in the greens, and certain spots around the green where you maybe had a chance in November, you don’t have much of a chance right now.”He had just finished a practice round with Mike Weir, the 2003 Masters winner and the only son of Canada ever to win one of golf’s major tournaments. Weir regaled Conners with tales of victory — and offered a few tips, one of the traditions of the Masters.But on Saturday, the afternoon after the cut, Weir was no longer in the field. It was Conners’s turn to stir a roar. More

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      The Masters Is Business as Usual as Georgia Faces a Political Onslaught

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      Major League Baseball pulled its All-Star Game from the Atlanta area, but Georgia’s most cherished sporting event remains firmly rooted in the state.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Georgia and its new elections law are caught up in a political riptide.But there’s scant evidence of that on and around the grounds of Augusta National Golf Club, where the state’s most cherished sporting event, the Masters, begins play on Thursday. There are no protests along Washington Road. There are only limited calls in Georgia, even among the law’s fiercest critics, to upend a springtime ritual at a club that stands on what was once an indigo plantation and did not admit a Black member until 1990.Indeed, even after Major League Baseball chose to move its All-Star Game from Georgia to protest the law that restricts access to voting, there was little doubt that the Masters would go on as planned this week — a reflection of golf’s Republican lean, but also of Augusta National’s honed willingness to defy pressure and, crucially, the reality that the mighty, mystique-filled brand of the Masters hinges on one course, and one course alone.“When you think about the Masters golf tournament, the first major of the year, the Augusta National Golf Club, to suggest that it ‘doesn’t happen’ in Augusta really speaks to people’s lack of knowledge about the Augusta National and, more importantly, the Masters,” said Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. of Augusta, a former Democratic legislator in the state and an avowed opponent of the new elections law.Tournament play will begin less than one week after baseball’s announcement about the All-Star Game, an exhibition that will now be played in Denver and, unlike the Masters, is staged in a different city each year. But Augusta National is still facing scrutiny from well outside its gates, not least because its membership includes executives whose current and former companies have come under pressure to condemn the machinations in Atlanta, the state capital.At the White House on Tuesday, President Biden said it was “up to the Masters” whether the tournament should be moved out of Georgia. He added that it was “reassuring to see that for-profit operations and businesses are speaking up.”Officials at the club, which remained all-male until 2012, did not respond to requests for comment about the law ahead of the tournament. Augusta National’s chairman, Fred S. Ridley, is scheduled to hold his annual news conference on Wednesday, when he will most likely be asked about the measure, which, among other provisions, limited the time for voters to request absentee ballots and handed broad powers to the Republican-controlled Legislature.Ridley, who became Augusta National’s chairman in 2017, has often had a more conciliatory tone than his predecessors on whatever controversy percolated around the tournament. Less than 20 years ago, Chairman William Johnson, whose nickname was Hootie, faced pressure to allow a woman to join Augusta National and responded by decreeing that a woman might someday be invited to join “but that timetable will be ours and not at the point of a bayonet.”At the height of the protests in 2003, Augusta National held the Masters without the support of television sponsors. It was “unfair,” Johnson said at the time, “to put the Masters media sponsors in the position of having to deal with this pressure.”But last autumn, with the country engaged in a sustained debate about some of the very racial inequities that had endured at Augusta National over its history, Ridley said that the club and three corporate partners had pledged $10 million for a pair of underserved Augusta neighborhoods that have grappled with generational poverty and neglect.Lee Elder became the first Black golfer to compete at the Masters in 1975.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Thursday, Lee Elder, who in 1975 became the first Black golfer to play the Masters, will join the traditional honorary starters Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player to hit the 2021 tournament’s ceremonial tee shots. To many people, Augusta National’s ultimate decisions were welcome but tardy, a familiar criticism for a club where opaqueness and caution are among the norms.This time, golf has given Ridley some cover. The sport has expressed measured anger — and suggested it had no desire, or willingness, to boycott Georgia.The PGA Tour, which does not control the Masters, said over the weekend that it would not move the Tour Championship, which is scheduled to be played in Atlanta, because of the economic and charitable repercussions the decision would have on nearby impoverished areas. It added, though, that the choice “to stage an event in a particular market should not be construed as indifference to the current conversation around voting rights” and that it was “a critical national priority to listen to the concerns about voter suppression — especially from communities of color that have been marginalized in the past.”The P.G.A. of America, which is planning to hold the Women’s P.G.A. Championship in suburban Atlanta in June, said it was “monitoring developments.”“We believe elections should be accessible, fair and secure, and support broad voter participation,” it added.And almost none of the sport’s top players have made open demands for any other approach, a contrast to the tactics of the Major League Baseball Players Association, which had made its reservations about the All-Star Game public.The golfer Collin Morikawa called the issue of voting “very important.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesCollin Morikawa, who won last year’s P.G.A. Championship, said this week that issues of voting were “very important” and that he did not believe that golfers were “stepping out of our way to block it out and forget about it.”“The topic of voter rights and all that, that should be the topic that we talk about, not if we are here playing golf,” he said.Bryson DeChambeau, who is hoping to contend after a disappointing Masters showing last year, avoided the clearest political tripwires but cited golf’s contributions to the communities where tournaments are held.“We try to show, no matter what happens, we’re going to do our best to be an example for the world,” he said. “I think when those times come about, we have an opportunity to show the world what we can provide.”But when asked on Tuesday whether golf or Augusta National should take a forceful stand against the law, Cameron Champ, who is biracial and one of the few Black players on the tour, replied, “I would think so” and moments later described baseball’s decision as “a big statement.”“It really targets certain Black communities, makes it harder for them to vote,” Champ, who wore shoes reading “Black Lives Matter” at a tournament last year, said of the Georgia statute.A crucial question for Augusta National in the coming weeks and months will be how to balance its views with whatever pressure its handful of tournament sponsors or the companies employing its members may face. A similar dynamic surfaced in the early 2000s, when Citigroup effectively acknowledged that Sanford I. Weill, an Augusta National member who was then the company’s chairman, had told the club that he supported adding women to the membership.Condoleezza Rice was one of the first two women to become members of Augusta National, in 2012.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf Augusta National were to condemn the law, its message would carry outsize influence in the state.Although the club’s membership roster is not public, the guarded grounds are a gathering place for many of the South’s most powerful figures and their guests. And its known members include bipartisan political royalty, including Condoleezza Rice, who was raised in segregated Alabama and was secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, and Sam Nunn, a Democrat who represented Georgia in the United States Senate for about 24 years.M.L.B. Commissioner Rob Manfred at the 2020 Masters last November.Rob Carr/Getty ImagesIn a letter on Monday, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, asked Rob Manfred, the M.L.B. commissioner, whether he would surrender his Augusta National membership. A league spokesman did not respond to a request for comment, but Rubio opined that he was “under no illusion” that Manfred would quit because that would “require a personal sacrifice, as opposed to the woke corporate virtue signaling of moving the All-Star Game.”Davis, Augusta’s mayor, praised baseball’s move but said he was not worried about the tournament, which local officials believe is responsible for at least $50 million in economic impact, when the Masters is running at normal capacity. He argued that people in the city would challenge and protest the new law but also be deeply protective of their most renowned athletic tradition.“This is our sports team,” he said. “We don’t have the Falcons, the Cowboys or the Baltimore Ravens. But what we do have, every year, same time, is the Masters golf tournament.” More

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      Without Tiger Woods, the 2021 Masters Leaderboard Is Wide Open

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      As Augusta National faces life without Woods, possibly even beyond this year, several young golfers look ready to usher in a new era.AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Masters tournament, after an aberrant autumn appearance five months ago, returns this week to its customary place as a ritual of spring, and golf fans will find familiar the sight of vibrant azalea bushes and blooming magnolia trees. But beyond aesthetics at the Augusta National Golf Club, this year’s Masters may be at a crossroads, when golf’s most tradition-bound event turns a new page.Slightly more than a year ago, the energy driving the golf world was a fervent zeal to watch Tiger Woods defend his seismic 2019 Masters victory. Now, the next chapter of the Tiger era at the Masters remains wholly undefined. Because of the serious leg injuries he sustained in a February car crash, Woods will not compete at the Masters, something that has happened three times since 2014.This absence, however, is altogether different.Woods’s future as a competitive golfer is unclear, and the Masters marches on without the person at the cynosure of the tournament’s dominant narrative for nearly 25 years.“You can’t go to Augusta and not think about the guy,” Curtis Strange, a two-time United States Open champion who is now a broadcaster for ESPN, said last week of Woods. “He changed the game as we knew it right in front of our very eyes at Augusta.”But the void that Woods’s absence creates at the Masters could serve to underscore the most dramatic transformation in men’s professional golf: a changing of the guard at the top of the weekly leaderboard. New, younger personalities have stormed into the spotlight vacated by Woods, 45, and some of his contemporaries, like Phil Mickelson, who will turn 51 in June. The game has seen an infusion of not just youth, but players with back stories alluring enough to ease the transition.Bryson DeChambeau has been a dominant force in golf for several years.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesFor example, a year ago, Bryson DeChambeau was still an eccentric curio on the PGA Tour, known more for his quirks than his accomplishments. In 2020 and continuing into this year, DeChambeau, 29, has been the dominant force in golf even when he is not on the course. With an intense fitness regimen and hard-swinging power game that launched prodigious drives, DeChambeau forced his rivals to reconsider everything, including their course strategies and their diets. Moreover, he captivated golf fans as a new breed of golfer in an age-old sport — daring, showy and charismatic.DeChambeau also backed up his boasts of reinventing golf by bludgeoning the 2020 United States Open field, and a venerable golf course, to claim a runaway victory that verified his status as a phenomenon. DeChambeau has not gone away, with one PGA Tour victory and a tie for third place at the Players Championship last month. It’s true that DeChambeau conspicuously failed to overpower Augusta National in November, but the golf course in the firm conditions of spring — as opposed to the soft fairways that greeted competitors in November — will give him another opportunity to prove that his brawny style can prevail.“He’s certainly got the talent, and maybe learning from the November experience will be very beneficial for him,” Nick Faldo, a three-time Masters champion and now a CBS broadcaster, said of DeChambeau last week.DeChambeau, who has never putted well on Augusta National’s slick greens in four previous Masters appearances, is not backing down.“I’m definitely hitting it a lot further than I was in November of last year,” he said in March, looking ahead to the Masters. “So there are some places that I will look at taking a line that’s going to be a little different than last time.”DeChambeau, the world No. 5, is not the only golfer under 30 years old among the top contenders this week. Thirteen of the top 25 ranked golfers, including four of the top five, are in their 20s. Many come with pedigrees, like world No. 2 Justin Thomas, 27, who last month added a Players Championship victory to go with the P.G.A. Championship he won in 2017. Ranked fourth worldwide, Collin Morikawa, 24, already has a tour victory this season and won last year’s P.G.A. Championship. Jon Rahm, 26, is the world’s third-ranked golfer and has had five top-10 finishes in his seven events this year. Xander Schauffele, 27, is No. 6 in the world rankings and tied for second in the 2019 Masters.There are factors working against a new generation of players leaping to the forefront of golf’s most-watched event this week, notably the accepted canon that a Masters champion must have acquired a wealth of practiced knowledge about the Augusta National layout to win. But the current crop of young players may be fast-tracking the learning curve.Or as Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, said last month in a telephone interview: “You can have plenty of experience at 27 years old. There could be four Masters champions in a six-year span that are under 30. That would not surprise me in the least.”Jordan Spieth, top left, has his driver worked on during a practice round.Doug Mills/The New York TimesJordan Spieth, who won the 2015 Masters when he was 21, is another young golfer whose recent form makes him a candidate to be slipping on a green jacket after the final round on Sunday. Spieth has won three major golf championships, but had gone nearly four years without a tour victory until he won the Valero Texas Open on Sunday. Spieth’s revival has put him back in the mix, and he insists that his age group is positioned to make a run at several Masters championships. He did not rule out crowning a champion who was playing in his first Masters, something that has not happened since Fuzzy Zoeller won the tournament in 1979.“I wouldn’t be surprised going forward if you end up getting a first-time winner at some point or a number of young guys that are able to do it,” Spieth said last week.Spieth said Augusta National’s extremely hilly terrain, a feature that is hard to grasp from watching the event on television, might especially benefit younger players.“Honestly, it’s a tough walk, it’s one of the toughest walks on tour,” Spieth said of Augusta National. “Physically, it can take a toll. So you would think that guys that are in their mid-20s would be in the best position physically.”Other less-than-household names within golf’s youth movement may have escaped the attention of casual golf fans but are nonetheless worthy contenders this week. Foremost in that group is Sungjae Im, 23, of South Korea, who was the PGA Tour rookie of the year in 2019 and tied for second in his Masters debut last year. No Asian has won the Masters, although that has not stopped Im from dreaming of a Korean-style menu that will be served at the annual champions-only dinner the year after he wins the tournament.“Marinated ribs, of course,” he said in November with a grin.There are few Black players in this year’s Masters field, although Tony Finau, who finished tied for fifth in 2019 and is the world’s 13th ranked golfer, is among the contenders for the title. Vijay Singh, the Masters champion in 2000, is also competing.Change, like the passing of a torch from generation to generation, is in the air at the Masters despite the tournament’s reputation for time-honored traditions. And golf fans may already be warming up to the makeover taking place at the top of the leaderboards.With the television viewership declining for other sports lately, the ratings for PGA Tour events this year have increased by 10 to 20 percent, and some in golf credit the surge to the increasing prominence of what Jim Nantz, the longtime CBS broadcaster, called “the new brigade.”“We’ve arrived at a point now where we don’t have to rely on just Tiger,” Nantz said last week. “We all know how enormous his presence is — maybe he comes back one day, that’s not what we’re addressing here. But how does the sport transition to a time when he is not at the top of the game?”Nantz continued: “There are so many interesting figures now that are competing at the highest level of our sport and them being certified as great players, people are going to watch more often.”Dustin Johnson, left, and Rory McIlroy walk with their caddies during a practice round at Augusta National.Doug Mills/The New York Times More

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      Collin Morikawa Wins Workday Title on a Day of Tributes to Woods

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Tiger Woods’s Car CrashWoods Undergoes More ProceduresWill He Play Again?Golf Without TigerA Terrible Turn of FateHonoring WoodsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCollin Morikawa Wins Workday Title on a Day of Tributes to WoodsMorikawa, 24, who won the 2020 P.G.A. Championship in August, is doing things only Tiger Woods had done before turning 25.Collin Morikawa celebrated after winning the Workday Championship on Sunday in Bradenton, Fla.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressFeb. 28, 2021, 9:20 p.m. ETBRADENTON, Fla. — Although he was atop the leaderboard, Collin Morikawa stumbled repeatedly on Saturday and Sunday at the PGA Tour’s Workday Championship, even calling one of his setbacks “stupidity at its finest.”But surmounting the unsettling vicissitudes of golf with a winning, steely resolve is becoming the hallmark of Morikawa’s career. Such a performance seemed especially appropriate on Sunday when tour players and fans honored Tiger Woods by wearing red shirts and black pants, Woods’s signature final-round outfit.In the end, Morikawa, 24, confidently persevered with a three-stroke victory in the World Golf Championship event to join Woods as the only player to win a major golf championship and a World Golf Championship event before age 25. Like many in the tournament’s field, Morikawa, who won last year’s P.G.A. Championship in August, grew up idolizing Woods. Standing next to the 18th green Sunday evening, Morikawa said of Woods, who remained hospitalized after a car crash in Los Angeles County, Calif., on Tuesday, “Tiger means everything to me.”He added: “I don’t think we say thank you enough, so I want to say thank you to Tiger because sometimes you lose people too early.”Morikawa mentioned Kobe Bryant and his paternal grandfather, Toshio, who he said died a month ago.“You don’t get to say thank you enough,” Morikawa said.The third-round leader, Morikawa turned in a Woods-like performance on Sunday, holding off the strongest tour field so far this year. It was Morikawa’s fourth PGA Tour victory, a stunning turnaround from his first, inglorious moment in the tour spotlight only eight months ago.At the Charles Schwab Classic in June, which was the first tournament last year after the men’s tour’s 90-day layoff because of the pandemic, Morikawa missed a three-foot putt that ended a two-man playoff that he lost. Just three events later, he won his first pro tournament, then added the P.G.A. Championship. Morikawa has ascended to sixth in the world rankings with a string of steady performances.Going through the crucible of successfully defending his third-round lead at the Concession Golf Club could be a springboard to more victories.“It makes me a little more comfortable after sleeping on the lead knowing that guys were ready to go low today,” Morikawa said. “I do feel confident.”Morikawa did not wear a red shirt in the final round, although his clothing manufacturer shipped him one. He said weather might have delayed the arrival.Morikawa was pursued on Sunday by two other young hotshots, Viktor Hovland, 23, and Scottie Scheffler, 24. He also had to fend off Brooks Koepka, a four-time major winner. Hovland made eight birdies to pressure Morikawa, who entered the final round with a two-stroke lead, but he faltered with bogeys on the 14th and 16th holes and finished in a three-way tie for second. Scheffler also had eight birdies, but a double bogey on the par-4 16th hole was his undoing and dropped him to fifth place. Koepka had an up-and-down round with five birdies and three bogeys, which stalled his charge, although he managed to tie Hovland and Billy Horschel for second.On Saturday, after Morikawa three-putted the 13th hole to make bogey, he called the outcome “stupidity at its finest.” He three-putted the 13th hole again on Sunday, but this time it led to a par, which was all he needed at the time to hold on to his three-stroke lead.“I said that yesterday because I psyched myself out before I even played the 13th hole,” Morikawa said of his “stupidity” remark. “But I learned from yesterday.” More