Collin Morikawa "feels old" as he opens up on stressful PGA Tour season

Collin Morikawa has explained this year has been "stressful" and "frustrating" ahead of the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba on the PGA Tour.

Ben Smith

02 Nov 2022

Collin Morikawa "feels old" as he opens up on stressful PGA Tour season

Collin Morikawa says he feels as though he is getting old as he opened up on a frustrating PGA Tour season ahead of the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba.

Morikawa, 25, went winless in 2021-2022 on the PGA Tour. Despite starting off his campaign with a second place finished at the CJ Cup at The Summit Club in Las Vegas and a T-2 at The Genesis Invitational his season failed to really take off.

This was after he had the chance to move to the World No.1 spot at the Hero World Challenge in Albany, Bahamas but he squandered a five-stroke lead and suffered a case of the dreaded shanks.

Morikawa began the year as the World No. 2 but is now the No. 9 in the Official World Golf Ranking. He spent the majority of the time batting away suggestions he would jump over to that tour.

In the majors, the 2021 Open Champion finished fifth at The Masters, T-55 at the PGA Championship, T-5 at the U.S. Open and he missed the cut at the 150th Open Championship.

Not truly being a factor in the big ones would have been as surprising as it was frustrating for TaylorMade staffer Morikawa.

Of his 2021-2022 season, Morikawa told the media:

"This year's been fairly stressful, a little frustrating at the same time. I think some guys are definitely taking it easy [in the fall schedule] and I've kind of ramped it up just trying to kind of figure things out.

"I want to finish this fall on the best of foot forward as possible. That's why I come to these tournaments, is to come out here and play well and hopefully win. That's been a big thing is just this year hasn't really had any of those opportunities yet."

According to Morikawa, his problems began when he played back-to-back events on the DP World Tour after playing in Hawaii.

Things have reportedly "not felt good" since the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and the Dubai Desert Classic.

Morikawa, who met an awestruck fan last week, continued:

"I've just been kind of trying to figure out what was wrong when it was simply just kind of a body thing and just the way my body was moving. Unfortunately, it took seven, eight months throughout the year to at least find that, but that's on me."

Morikawa was asked if he had made any changes in the gym due to how he was feeling.

He said:

"To be honest, I think it's just getting old. Yeah, no, it's just getting old.

"I mean, man, like I drank way more in college than I ever do now, but apparently when you get older, your body just moves differently. I still feel great, like everything feels great, everything moves great, but it's just not as clean as it was.

"And the maintenance I have to do now is just a little bit more. It doesn't mean I need to do anything crazy, I'm not changing anything really, it's just getting my body to where I need it to be."

Morikawa will be on the favourites this week. Viktor Hovland is attempting to win in Mayakoba for the third year in a row.