Tour “PRO” File – Collin Morikawa

When three prominent U.S. collegiate golfers turned professional all about the same time in early 2019, Matthew Wolfe and Viktor Hovland earned much of the press. But knowing insiders pointed to Collin Morikawa as the most likely to have the greater career, and so far, just a little over two years later, that forecast has proved to be deadly accurate. Morikawa is leaving his then-more-well-known peers in the dust as he captured his second major championship, The Open, this past July. As of this writing, he leads the PGA Tour in stroke-gained tee-to-green and in greens in regulation, which currently makes him the best ballstriker in the game, and it’s not even that close to the next guy. The only thing preventing Morikawa from dominating the game is his short game (strokes-gained around the green) is ranked 70th and his putting 170th (strokes-gained putting). If he can move both of those statistics into, say, the top 50 while keeping his ballstriking prowess, it is likely he could be as dominating as Tiger Woods. But of course, that’s a big “if.” In any case, Morikawa will certainly win multiple major championships and cement a hall-of-fame career. The only question is how great his greatness will be.