The Morikawa Redemption: Why Collin’s Pebble Victory Matters More Than You Think

I’ve been covering professional golf since before most of today’s Tour stars were born, and I’ve learned something after 35 years of watching this game: the scorecards that matter most aren’t always the ones that end up in the record books.

Yes, Collin Morikawa won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Sunday with a brilliant final round and a tap-in birdie at the 18th. Yes, he held off Scottie Scheffler, the world’s best player, in the process. But here’s what really struck me about this victory—and what I think tells us something profound about the mental fragility of elite golf: the biggest win happened inside Morikawa’s head before he ever stepped foot on the first tee.

The Perfectionism Trap

In my three decades covering the tour, I’ve seen plenty of talented players self-destruct. But Collin Morikawa’s particular flavor of suffering is almost uniquely modern—the curse of the obsessive perfectionist in an age where data, video analysis, and self-criticism can spiral into paralysis.

After a winless 28-month stretch that included irrelevance at the majors, Morikawa didn’t just arrive at Pebble in poor form. He arrived in his own head, digging what he himself calls “very, very deep” rabbit holes. The man actually hit YouTube to study his own swing videos, dissecting his mechanics like a forensic pathologist rather than a professional athlete who has already won major championships.

Enter Rick Sessinghaus, Morikawa’s lifelong swing coach, who apparently had enough of the kvetching.

“Stop obsessing about your swing and go play golf. Emphasis on play, a verb that often conjures joy.”

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. And it worked.

What fascinates me—and what I think separates the truly elite players from the merely excellent ones—is how quickly Morikawa responded to that nudge. On Sunday, he shot 62 at Pebble Beach, picking up 6.47 strokes with his approach play alone. For context, that’s a single-round career high in approach efficiency for a guy who, before Scottie Scheffler came along, was literally known as the best iron player on Tour. The difference? Mental freedom.

The Gratitude Adjustment

Here’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough in golf coverage: the role of perspective and gratitude in peak performance. Early in his career, Morikawa won two majors in his first seven starts. By any measure, that’s an extraordinary achievement. Yet when I read his reflection—

“I think I just didn’t enjoy it. Like I didn’t enjoy the major wins as much as I should have.”

—it hit me that we’re looking at a young man who was so focused on the next target that he forgot to acknowledge where he actually was.

Now, with a wife expecting their first child in May and a small glass of wine in his hand (which he noted he “never does”), Morikawa is learning something that took me decades to understand: professional golf is stressful enough without torturing yourself about what you’re doing wrong in every given moment. The game demands both precision and presence, and those two things are often at odds.

Tommy Fleetwood, Morikawa’s playing partner on Sunday, offered some perspective that I think is worth underscoring:

“To be out here, you have to be tough on yourself. I think one of the hardest things in sport is to manage your own expectations. Collin, maybe he needs to give himself more credit. How old is he? He’s had an unbelievable career already.”

Fleetwood’s point—that managing expectations might be harder than executing under pressure—is something I’ve observed in dozens of top players over the years. The mental game isn’t just about staying calm; it’s about calibrating your internal dialogue.

Context Matters: The Detractors Don’t Get It

Look, I understand the cottage industry of Morikawa criticism. Yes, both his major championships came during COVID. Yes, he’s 0-4 in PGA Tour playoffs. But here’s what the detractors conveniently ignore: he’s won as many major championships as Greg Norman, Johnny Miller, Curtis Strange, Bernhard Langer, Ben Crenshaw, and Jose Maria Olazabal. He’s the first American to win the Race to Dubai. And now he’s added a win at Pebble Beach, one of golf’s cathedrals.

That’s not a resume that requires apologizing for anything.

What struck me most on Sunday wasn’t just the quality of Morikawa’s golf—though that 4-iron into the wind on 16, which Sepp Straka called “unbelievable,” was the kind of shot you see from players who’ve broken through the mental ceiling. It was watching him finally accept that he belongs in those conversations.

A Player Reborn

Having caddied professionally in the 1990s, I learned that the moment a player stops trying to prove something externally and starts playing for internal validation is often the inflection point of their career. Morikawa articulated this perfectly on Sunday evening:

“I don’t think I have anything to prove to anyone. I think it’s more just to myself to say, Man, you’re on the right path, like keep believing in yourself because look what you’re doing.”

That’s maturity talking. That’s a player who has suffered enough to understand that the scoreboard isn’t the enemy—his own perfectionism was.

Will this one victory suddenly transform Morikawa into a major championship machine? Maybe, maybe not. But what I can tell you from my vantage point is this: a player who has learned to embrace joy alongside precision, who understands that gratitude and ambition aren’t mutually exclusive, and who can finally take a shot at a time without three steps ahead is fundamentally more dangerous than he was before.

Tommy Fleetwood said it best: “He’s even more dangerous now. Very, very dangerous.”

And that should terrify the rest of the field.