It’s hard to get inside the head of any professional athlete, but it seemed reasonable to attribute Morikawa’s collapse in some measure to pressure. He got really bad, really fast, and it happened in sight of what would have been his first PGA Tour win in 18 months. Similarly, it seems completely fair to wonder if what happened will live in his head for a while — if winning next time will be a more difficult challenge, and if we might be seeing the start of a pattern. Even Morikawa couldn’t find it in himself to glimpse the silver lining.

“It’s hard to look at the positives, it really is,” he said on Sunday, just after agreeing that the two-shot loss to Jon Rahm was the lowlight of his still nascent professional career.

And yet, this is probably also a great time for perspective. First off, Morikawa is only 25 and already a two-time major champion. That is not an irrelevant fact. Nor is it irrelevant that he won his first major, the PGA at TPC Harding Park in 2020, with one of the all-time clutch shots in PGA Championship history.

Fact is, Morikawa is already a five-time PGA Tour winner, with a DP World Tour Championship to throw in for good measure — en route becoming the first American to win the circuit’s year-long points title. And all of those accolades came after this happened to him at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial:

That crazy lip-out to lose a playoff with Daniel Berger happened in June 2020, but two months later, we had tweets like this one: “I remember when I was worried the Colonial loss might haunt Morikawa.”

Why? Because two months is exactly how long it took him to win the Workday Charity Open and the PGA Championship. If there was scar tissue that summer, it healed pretty quickly, and it stayed healed through the Open Championship that next summer, where he claimed major No. 2, and a tremendous Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in September 2021.

The point is, Collin Morikawa is a great young player, he has thrived under pressure in ways that are extraordinary for anyone, much less a 25-year-old. That’s not to say he hasn’t struggled under pressure, too, Kapalua joining his stumble at Colonial and at the 2021 Hero World Challenge, where he lost a five-shot lead in the final round when he was on the cusp of becoming the World’s No. 1 golfer. He has been on the roller coaster, and so far, what’s gone down has always come up. For a guy who seemed to be on the verge of posting a 30-under score, it seems safe to assume that he’s got the game to come back again.

(There is one other mitigating factor that needs to be mentioned here — while conceding that Morikawa faded down the stretch on Sunday, it’s also important to acknowledge that blowing a six-shot lead is much easier on a course like Kapalua where you can almost guarantee somebody is going to go very low. When 10 under par — the score Rahm shot to charge back on Sunday that included a bogey on the first hole — is not just in play, but almost likely, big leads evaporate quickly and, objectively, it’s far less of a choke to lose such a lead when the natural variation is so huge.)

Let’s go deeper than Morikawa, though. Let’s talk about expectations. We all know Tiger Woods set a skewed standard for actually winning a golf tournament (today, those who crunch the numbers have found that the highest win percentage among pros belongs to Rahm, whose 11-per cent number for all OWGR starts is enhanced by playing in more European events where he has a greater chance of winning). But there’s an argument to be made that Woods also skewed our expectations about playing well under pressure. As a famous frontrunner, he was 14-for-14 with a 54-hole lead in majors and 47-for-50 on the PGA Tour coming before the final round of the 2009 PGA Championship, when he finally lost a Sunday duel to YE Yang. Even then, Woods’ personal life was on the verge of a massive upheaval, so there may be an excuse for the slight blip.

Just like Woods’ penchant for winning, this type of clutch play in his prime was anomalous and may have altered our perception of what’s “normal” in professional golf. Woods only had six second-place finishes in major championships, but go back in the past, and Jack Nicklaus had 19 runners-up to go with his 18 titles. Arnold Palmer finished with at least a share of second 10 times, compared to his seven major crowns. Some of that may have to do with lesser competition in Nicklaus and Palmer’s heyday, but it still speaks to the fact that when Woods got close in the game’s biggest events, he won at an extraordinary clip.

This does not happen in golf anymore. The parity we see in the men’s game may be a result of Woods as an inspirational figure, but while we see modern players emulate his aggression and his commitment to fitness and his general competitive style, we have yet to see anyone who handles pressure like he did. Think of the greats — we don’t need to go into Rory McIlroy’s pressure woes, do we? Or how Jordan Spieth blew a Masters in 2016 a year after one of the greatest seasons ever? Or how Brooks Koepka, the seeming stone-cold killer, did everything he could to cough up the 2019 PGA Championship and hasn’t been the same since? And these are the best of the best!

The point is, losing a big lead, even for an elite professional golfer, is normal. If a top player never loses a big lead, he’s probably Tiger Woods. If a top player does lose a big lead, as Morikawa did at Kapalua, it doesn’t mean he’s on the path to anonimity. It just means he’s existing within the ebbs and flows of pressure performance on the PGA Tour.

Morikawa endured his first winless season in 2022, but the strength of his game at the Sentry TOC proves he’s ready to win again. There are two prevailing tides for someone like Morikawa: the first is his game, the second is his mentality. Like the water in the ocean that heats at a slower rate than the sky above it, the brain can take a moment to remember how to win once the game returns. For Morikawa, the memory of being a champion will catch up to his talent, and at that moment his wave will come.

The post Don’t worry about Collin Morikawa’s ‘scar tissue’ from Kapalua. Here’s why he’ll be fine appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

His packing skills, however, could use some work.

Rahm kicked off his post-round press conference in Maui by noting his wardrobe choice for the final round was an accident. “I’m wearing black pants and the Sunday shirt that I usually wear [when I’m in contention] because I was like: ‘Oh, I don’t usually like getting too close to Sundays in time,’” Rahm said, regarding his red shirt and black trousers. “We’re so far away, whatever, I’ll just wear black. I didn’t want to wear navy [pants] every day. So I just put on the black ones, not that I even had hope, but I’m like we’re going to need a small miracle.”

It was a comment that caught some off-guard and begged a follow-up question later in his back-and-forth with the media; what, exactly, was Rahm talking about regarding navy pants?

“You want to know the honest truth?” Rahm replied. “I forgot almost all the belts I was supposed to bring.”

As Rahm explained, he had two belts with him in Hawaii, a navy belt and black belt. “And I told [wife] Kelley, I’m not about to be hot as hell all week wearing black pants and darker shirts, so navy it is.”

Then Sunday came, and Rahm decided he was done wearing navy for the week. Which normally wouldn’t be an issue, except that his Sunday scripted shirt was red. For those who have been following golf for the last 25 years, that’s a colour combo made famous by a certain 15-time major winner.

“I know it’s a stupid answer to a stupid question, but that’s the truth. I usually don’t want to wear anything that’s close to red with black on Sundays because of Tiger. That’s his outfit,” Rahm said. “But that’s why I wear grey or navy or other things usually. I don’t want to get close to him. But, yeah, I just, I just didn’t want to wear navy anymore. I forgot my belts, that’s all it is.”

Well, that wasn’t all. Rahm conceded he also forgot to bring socks. “Yeah, I forgot a few things,” he said, laughing. Against that, it’s a minor miracle the man remembered to bring his clubs.

Considering Rahm is in the midst of a heater — he has three wins in his last five official starts, with his “worst” showing a T-4 — it sounds like the only thing standing in the 28-year-old’s way is what he puts, or doesn’t put, in his suitcase.

The post Jon Rahm on his ‘stupid’ reason for dressing like Tiger Woods on Sunday appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

With bogeys on 14, 15 and 16 — making him the only player in the entire field to bogey those three holes in succession during any round — Morikawa stumbled to a closing 72. Simultaneously, the hard-charging Jon Rahm overcame an opening-hole bogey with nine birdies and an eagle to overtake him on the leaderboard and grab the title by two strokes.

Six shots is the largest 54-hole lead ever blown in a PGA Tour event, an “accomplishment” that eight other players have previously “achieved”.

Who else could empathise with Morikawa? Here is the list of the eight other players who also blew six-shot leads on tour:

• Bobby Cruickshank, 1928 Florida Open (final-round 80)
• Gay Brewer, 1969 Danny Thomas-Diplomat Classic (73)
• Hal Sutton, 1983 Anheuser-Busch Classic (77)
• Greg Norman, 1996 Masters (78)
• Sergio Garcia, 2005 Wachovia Championship (72)
• Spencer Levin, 2012 WM Phoenix Open (75)
• Dustin Johnson, 2017 WGC-HSBC Champions (77)
• Scottie Scheffler, 2022 Tour Championship (73*)
  * Scheffler started the tournament with a two-shot lead due to the Tour Championship’s staggered start format

The post LOOK: Here’s who Collin Morikawa joined to become the ninth player in PGA Tour history to lose a six-shot final-round lead appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Although much of the focus will be on Morikawa’s late-round implosion (three straight bogeys on the back nine after having played the entire week to that point bogey free) that would be unfair to Rahm, who produced a 10-under-par 63 to make up ground in a hurry. Case in point was Rahm’s play on the par-5 15th, where he ripped a 355-yard drive and set up a short iron into the green. His second shot finished 12 feet from the hole, and when he made the eagle putt while Morikawa was bogeying the short par-4 14th, Rahm was suddenly tied for the lead. That culminated a four-hole stretch for Rahm in which he played in five under par.

Rahm came to Kapalua with a revamped top end of the bag, swapping out all of his woods for Callaway’s new Paradym Triple Diamond model — a bold move considering Rahm led the tour in strokes gained/off-the-tee last season with his Callaway Rogue ST driver.

The switch, however, appeared seamless. Rahm ranked sixth in strokes gained/off-the-tee while ranking second in driving distance, a stat aided by the fact he had at least one tee shot of more than 400 yards in each round.

The driver uses a fully carbon-composite midsection that comprises much of the entire body of the clubhead and is 44-percent lighter than if it were made of titanium. That weight savings is used to create a more efficient system for transferring energy to the ball at impact.

What Jon Rahm had in the bag at the 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions
Ball: Callaway Chrome Soft X
Driver: Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond (Aldila Tour Green 75 TX), 10.5 degrees
3-wood: Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond, 16 degrees
5-wood: Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond, 18 degrees
Irons (4-PW): Callaway Apex TCB
Wedges: Callaway Jaws raw (52, 56, 60 degrees)
Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG Rossie

The post The clubs Jon Rahm used to win the 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

As it turned out, Scott shot a closing four-under 69 at Kapalua to finish 13-under for the tournament and in solo 29th place. That came with it a $210,000 prize money payout, which allowed Scott to become just the seventh player in PGA Tour history to exceed $60 million in career money earned on the course.

Scott leaves Kapalua with $60,083,599 in 370 starts. Here are the six other players who have won that much money in PGA Tour events:
Tiger Woods, $120,895,206 (371 starts, 82 wins)
Phil Mickelson, $94,955,060 (658 starts, 45 wins)
Dustin Johnson, $74,897,059 (307 starts, 24 wins)
Jim Furyk, $71,507,269 (635 starts, 17 wins)
Vijay Singh, $71,236,216 (636 starts, 34 wins)
Rory McIlroy, $68,064,549 (221 starts, 23 wins)

When you include Scott in this group, interestingly, he actually has earned the most money on tour per win with $4,291,685, aided by the fact he has the fewest wins among the players to earn $60 million or more on tour. Scott, however, ranks fourth in money won per start at roughly $162,388 for each of his 369 events. Tiger, not surprisingly, has won the most per start ($325,863), followed by McIlroy ($307,984) and Johnson ($243,964).

With the prize money payouts exploding on the PGA Tour in 2023 thanks to substantial purse increases in 13 ‘elevated’ events (up to $20 million being paid out in each), there will be plenty of golfers hitting career money milestones in the coming year.

But who are the players next closest to hitting $60 million? Here are the next names on the career money list.
Justin Rose, $57,432,647
Matt Kuchar, $55,183,496
Sergio Garcia, $54,433,395
Jordan Spieth, $52,791,175
Justin Thomas, $50,953,830
Jason Day, $50,791,670

Rose and Kuchar would have to get their games in gear, but a hot stretch for either of the two would make it achievable. Given that Garcia has resigned his PGA Tour membership after joining LIV Golf, he’s eliminated himself from the $60 million club. Standout seasons, however, could have Spieth and Thomas following Scott in the not-too-distant future.

The post Adam Scott had a so-so week at Kapalua but he still achieved this rare PGA Tour money milestone appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 28-year-old Spaniard claimed the title at the Sentry Tournament of Champions on Sunday, posting a 10-under 63 to win for a 27-under 265 total to grab his eighth career victory on the PGA Tour — a year after finishing second in this event.

And yet, the fact that this is so is astonishing. With six holes to play on Sunday, you could have bet Rahm’s entire $2.7 million first-place prize money payout that the winner in Hawaii was going to be someone else. Collin Morikawa started the final round with a six-shot lead at Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course, extended it to seven shots at one point during the final round and was ahead of Rahm by four shots with just five holes remaining.

And then, suddenly and shockingly, Morikawa made three consecutive bogeys — after playing his first 67 holes of the week bogey-free — and saw the lead incredibly disappear. Morikawa would post a final-round 72, becoming just the eighth player in tour history to fail to close out a six-shot 54-hole lead.

Indeed, Rahm was actually nine shots back of Morikawa after the eventual winner made a bogey on first hole on Sunday, only to track him down for the unlikely win.

Back to the trivia question: The Sentry TOC was the first of the 13 events the tour has given an ‘elevated’ status in 2023 in response to LIV Golf offering guaranteed contracts and huge purses. The PGA is promoting these tournaments as an opportunity for its best players to compete against each other more often — and rewarding them for doing so by paying significant prize money payouts. The overall purse in Hawaii was $15 million.

Just how can you put the big boost in prize money in perspective? Let’s compare the difference in payouts from just a year ago until now. The 2022 Sentry TOC had a $8.2 million purse with Cam Smith earning $1.476 million for his victory (and Rahm pulling in $810,000). And to make $200,000 — which is how much last place paid on Sunday, you had to have a top-nine finish in 2022.

Here’s a comparison on the prize money payouts for the two events:

It’s interesting to note, too, that 10 years ago, the overall purse for this event was a mere $5.7 million.

Here’s the listing for the prize money payout for 2023:
Win: Jon Rahm, 265/-27, $2,700,000
2: Collin Morikawa, 267/-25, $1,500,000
T-3: Tom Hoge, 269/-23, $840,000
T-3: Max Homa, 269/-23, $840,000
T5: Tom Kim, 270/-22, $555,000
T5: J.J. Spaun, 270/-22, $555,000
T-7: Tony Finau, 271/-21, $368,750
T-7: Matt Fitzpatrick, 271/-21, $368,750
T-7: K.H. Lee, 271/-21, $368,750
T-7: Scottie Scheffler, 271/-21, $368,750
MORE: Patrick Cantlay again shuts down LIV Golf rumors
T-11: Luke List, 272/-20, $292,500
T-11: Will Zalatoris, 272/-20, $292,500
T-13: Sungjae Im, 273/-19, $265,000
T-13: Jordan Spieth, 273/-19, $265,000
T-13: Cameron Young, 273/-19, $265,000
T-16: Patrick Cantlay, 274/-18, $241,000
T-16: Brian Harman, 274/-18, $241,000
T-18: Corey Conners, 275/-17, $229,000
T-18: Viktor Hovland, 275/-17, $229,000
T-18: Aaron Wise, 275/-17, $229,000
T-21: Mackenzie Hughes, 276/-16, $220,000
T-21: Hideki Matsuyama, 276/-16, $220,000
T-21: J.T. Poston, 276/-16, $220,000
T-21: Sepp Straka, 276/-16, $220,000
T-25: Seamus Power, 277/-15, $213,333.34
T-25: Scott Stallings, 277/-15, $213,333.33
T-25: Justin Thomas, 277/-15, $213,333.33
28: Trey Mullinax, 278/-14, $211,000
29: Adam Scott, 279/-13, $210,000
T-30: Russell Henley, 280/-12, $208,500
T-30: Billy Horschel, 280/-12, $208,500
32: Sam Burns, 281/-11, $207,000
33: Sahith Theegala, 282/-10, $206,000
34: Keegan Bradley, 283/-9, $205,000
T-35: Ryan Brehm, 285/-7, $203,500
T-35: Chez Reavie, 285/-7, $203,500
37: Adam Svensson, 287/-5, $202,000
38: Chad Ramey, 290/-2, $201,000
WD: Xander Schauffele

The post Here’s the record-setting prize money payout for each golfer at the 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“He was bogey-free [for the tournament] until, what, until 14? Which is insane,” Jon Rahm said.

It was expected that the two-time major winner would end it with a magnificent crescendo. Instead, Morikawa produced a finish that was as jarring and discordant as fingernails across a chalkboard.

After an impeccable performance that enabled him to build a six-stroke lead through 54 holes, Morikawa couldn’t quite summon the same level of execution on Sunday. That opened the door for a charging Rahm to gallop past him for a stunning two-stroke victory at Kapalua Resort.

Stymied by one shot a year ago in an epic shoot-out with Cameron Smith despite blistering the Plantation Course for a 33-under 259, Rahm this time found enough strokes to get the job done, shooting a closing 10-under 63 for a 27-under 265 total and completing a comeback from nine shots behind with 17 holes to play. Of course, assistance from the front-runner was required, and Morikawa obliged with a trio of back-nine bogeys that left him with a one-under 72 — the second worst score on a brilliant day of sunshine and soft breezes.

“Had the same guy, the same Collin that we had the first three days, shown up, he would have been 30-something under. There’s very little we would have been able to do,” Rahm, 28, said after winning for the third time in his last four starts worldwide and collecting $2.7 million as the champion of the PGA Tour’s first ‘elevated’ event.

“You need a combination of both: me having a really good day, which I did, and Collin not having his best. It kind of happened to where it overlapped a little bit where I started really kicking in my next gear and he made a few bogeys. I’m lucky the golf gods were on my side in that sense.”

The heartbreaking setback was the second that Morikawa has endured in the last 13 months. At the 2021 Hero World Challenge, poised to become No. 1 in the world for the first time, the California native coughed up a five-stroke lead by stumbling to a four-over 76 while Viktor Hovland was 10 strokes better.

A different outcome was expected this time because this looked like a different Morikawa, one even more in command of his game and better equipped thanks to improvements to his short game and putting. Instead, he became the ninth player in PGA Tour history to surrender a six-shot lead.

“Sadness. I don’t know. It sucks,” said Morikawa, 25, rummaging through his emotions after being denied his sixth tour title and first since the 2021 Open Championship. “You work so hard, and you give yourself these opportunities and just bad timing on bad shots and kind of added up really quickly.”

Morikawa began the day six ahead of Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick and JJ Spaun, while Rahm was seven behind, and after a bogey at the first and a Morikawa birdie, the beefy Spaniard was nine back and not in the picture. And despite birdies on four of the next five holes, he had made up no ground by time he reached the par-5 ninth.

The complexion of the tournament changed when Rahm reeled off three birdies in a row starting at the short par-4 12th to climb within three strokes. And in the span of about three minutes, he was tied when he holed a 12-footer for eagle at the par-5 15th while Morikawa suffered his first bogey when he thinned a wedge out of a fairway bunker over the green at 14 and missed a 10-foot par attempt.

Winning is hard.

Once leading by 7, Collin Morikawa is now tied for the lead.

His first bogey of the week results in a co-lead with Jon Rahm. pic.twitter.com/PRiFBqvfGr

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 8, 2023

That’s when he felt pressure for the first time all day. “Once I made the bogey on 14 and they were walking off 15,” Morikawa said. “And didn’t see the leaderboard until I got on the green and you realise I’m putting for par to stay tied for the lead. At that point it’s a little different feeling than what you had early on.”

Morikawa was putting for par on the 15th hole because he pushed a 5-wood slightly and saw the ball roll off the steep slope some 30 feet below. Then he chunked his first chip. Things were slipping away, and they slipped farther away when he spun his approach off the green at the following hole for a third straight bogey. When Rahm sank a four-footer on 18 to go three ahead, it was over.

“It’s hard to look at the positives. It really is,” said Morikawa, who will take a few days off and then prepare for his next start at the Farmers Insurance Open near San Diego in three weeks.

Like Rahm, Morikawa knew he had lost the tournament as much as Rahm had gone out and won it. “A little bit of both. I mean one under on this course is not a good score. It really isn’t,” he admitted. “He still shot 63. But I still had it within reach. If I don’t make those bogeys and I make par, we’re right there. So he definitely made the birdies when he needed to. But I also made bogeys. When you’re getting bogeys at that time of the tournament, they’re costly. I definitely felt the weight of that.”

Jon Rahm. Harry How

It was obvious he felt the weight of the loss, too. He kissed his new bride Katherine lightly on the cheek after emerging from the scoring room and accepted a hug from Rahm by the first tee. He answered questions dutifully afterwards and wore a tight smile recounting the day. There were a lot of positives to the week, but not the one he sought so desperately. He wanted to win. He didn’t want another lesson.

“My game hasn’t felt like that in a very long time. We saw, I saw little specs of it throughout kind of the fall season and was never able to put four rounds together,” he said “We’re still getting there, but for me I know there’s still a lot of work to do. Obviously it shows today, but I’m willing to put in that work. I think at this point now it’s just kind of going to hopefully just push me more and more to really figure out what it’s going to take for 72 holes.

“Don’t know what I’m going to learn from this week,” Morikawa added in the final analysis. “It just didn’t seem like it was that far off. It really wasn’t. Yeah, it sucks.”

The post ‘It sucks:’ How Collin Morikawa’s fairy-tale start to 2023 turned into a nightmare appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Young, the reigning PGA Tour rookie of the year pro everybody wanted to partner with on the American side at last September’s Presidents Cup, was at 10-under for the tournament, four-under on the afternoon and just six shots off the lead, when he hit the green on the par 5 in two, leaving himself a 56-foot putt for eagle. As the microphones picked up, however, Young’s next shot was tricky in that it was a downhill, down grain putt with the potential to wander if it wasn’t handled with care.

And wander it did, as you can see with this video:

It’s a cruel game.

The greens @Sentry_TOC are no joke. pic.twitter.com/jTM9GsubeD

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 7, 2023

At one point as the ball approached the hole, it looked like Young played it too far to the right, but then suddenly it darted to the left. But not enough and not without too much speed as it also rushed past the hole and wasn’t close to stopping on the fringe of the green.

When the ball finally came to rest down a hill fronting the green, it was now just shy of 151 feet from the hole, having rolled more than 200 feet.

If the eagle putt was tricky, Young’s chip for birdie wasn’t any easier as he now was facing an uphill shot into the grain that had potential to land short and roll back off the green. Which, unfortunately for Young, is just what happened.

“Wow,” TV analyst Paul Azinger said as things unfolded. “That … really it’s like a jolt to your system when something like that happens to you as a player. It’s embarrassing and you have a blood rush from that one.”

For his fifth shot, Young played a pitch shot hard and low, hitting it 12 feet past the hole, the ball rolling back to six feet. He holed that putt for a bogey 6. He’d finish his round birdie, bogey, birdie to post a four-under 69, but as leader Collin Morikawa pulled away later in the day with a Saturday 65, Young wound ending the third round 14 shots off the pace.

The post Watch PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year Cam Young roll an eagle putt 150 feet off a green appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“That would be an understatement,” he said, clarifying he feelings about trying to win the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

After feasting on the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort for a third straight day, he’s set himself up for one happy meal. Winless since the 2021 DP World Tour Championship, Morikawa continued his impeccable play on Saturday with an eight-under-par 65 and surged to a six-stroke lead through 54 holes in this ‘elevated’ $15 million event. He remains bogey free and will attempt to go wire to wire and collect his sixth PGA Tour title after posting 24-under 195, a career low aggregate total by three shots.

“He’s putting really good. He doesn’t miss a shot. It’s a hard combo to beat,” said JJ Spaun, one of three players who are the closest pursuers.

Spaun, who shared the first-round lead with Morikawa and Jon Rahm, had a 69 on Saturday. He was joined at 18-under 201 by reigning US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, who shot 66, and Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, who had a 69 and then went straight to the practice putting green after missing a six-foot birdie putt that would have left him five behind.

Morikawa has barely missed from anywhere for three days, complementing his usually reliable ball striking with a revamped putting technique that has him leading the field with a gain of 6.778 strokes. Golf is never easy, but he agreed that he is very comfortable with his game and the alterations he began to incorporate after the Presidents Cup.

“Yeah. I mean, these changes, they’re very big because now I understand. But it’s not like I’m putting completely different,” he said. “I thought when I went to the saw putting grip like that was even a bigger of a change compared to when I’m doing now because I had never putted with the saw. Like I had no clue if the ball was going to go forward. It was just a roll of the dice. Now it’s just understanding what I’m doing. So, obviously, I’ve made changes, but they have been simple changes to where like on the golf course I’m not really thinking about much.”

Well, he is thinking about one thing. He admits he’s a results-oriented kind of guy. So he’s thinking about winning — his best chance to do so since he led by five shots in the 2021 Hero World Challenge before getting passed in the final round of the unofficial event by a charging Viktor Hovland.

Of course, there is still more work to do for the 25-year-old California native to end a frustrating stretch in which he has gone without a victory on the PGA Tour since the 2021 Open Championship.

“It has [felt like it’s been a while], I think just because what we talked on yesterday is like last year felt so long,” he said. “That kind of middle of the season really from Players all the way through playoffs just felt like it never ended. You’re always searching. When you’re playing well, you’re still searching for something. But it’s felt like awhile, especially since you see kind of my peers and friends get up to the top and, yeah, tomorrow’s a big one.”

Asked what is at stake, Morikawa, enjoying the largest 54-hole lead at Kapalua since Geoff Ogilvy held a similar advantage in 2009, didn’t mince words.

“Winning the golf tournament. That’s all it is,” he said. “I think it is every time you’re in these positions, just winning the golf tournament. It’s nothing else. I don’t care about anything else. I want to win.

“I know it’s going to take a lot,” he added. “There’s going to be a lot of guys out there that are going to be firing at pins, making a lot of birdies early on. So for me, just kind of do what I’ve been doing, staying patient, give myself opportunities and let ’em fall.”

The post Hungry Collin Morikawa feasts on Kapalua to build huge lead at Sentry TOC appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

About 30 pounds worth.

It was at the BMW Championship at Wilmington Country Club in Delaware that Bradley realized he wasn’t in the kind of shape required to play his best golf. He shot a closing five-over 76 to finish T-58 and failed to advance to the Tour Championship. He wasn’t swinging optimally. He wasn’t thinking as clearly. “I wasn’t feeling that good in general, but on the course, I felt like I was kind of fatiguing,” said the 36-year-old on Thursday at the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort, where he opened the Sentry Tournament of Champions with two three-under 70s to sit six-under at the halfway stage.

For years the former PGA champion had bought into the same fitness regimen as most of his peers that included strength training. When the 6ft, 3ins Vermont native turned pro in 2008 out of St John’s University, he was a wiry 190lbs. Over the years he had bulked up to 220lbs.

Wondering what he could do differently to improve his overall health, Bradley consulted one of his Florida neighbours, Dr Joshua Levitt, who with his wife Amanda founded a nutritional company called UpWellness. (Fellow professional golfers Brendan Steele and Charley Hull are endorsers of its products.) Bradley accepted the recommendation to radically change his diet to almost nothing but meat.

“If it walks, swims or flies, you can eat it, and I did a lot of fruit as well,” said Bradley, whose transformation has been so stunning that some fellow players inquired if he might be ill. “So, I’d have eggs in the morning, maybe chicken or ground beef for lunch and then steak at night. All grass-fed meat is the key. No vegetables. And no condiments, no sides, no starches, not even ketchup. All I did was salt, pepper … and some hot sauce.”

He also cut out soda and Gatorade, and while doing all this he also incorporated a cardio exercise regimen that included stationary bike and elliptical training and only light weightlifting. Bradley said the dietary transition was mentally challenging, but he was committed to seeing where it would take him and what difference it might have on his game.

“This is what I did for months, and it’s very difficult,” he said. “The times where I’m just craving you know, a piece of pizza or pasta I was telling myself: ‘No, this is this is part of the journey. It’s part of the process.’ But I feel good. I feel proud for doing it.”

By the time he showed up at the Zozo Championship in Japan in mid-October, Bradley was back down to 190lbs, but he hadn’t lost any distance or swing speed and felt like he was swinging with more ease. After a T-5 at the Sanderson Farms Championship to begin the autumn season, Bradley put together four solid rounds at Accordia Golf Narshino Country Club, including a closing two-under 68, and defeated Rickie Fowler and Andrew Putnam by a stroke for his fifth PGA Tour title but first since 2018.

“At Zozo, coming down the stretch, I felt so good, and that whole week I felt so good,” Bradley said. “Even at the CJ Cup, the week after with no sleep, jet lag, I put a good week together [T-21]. And I just felt like [I have in] years past.”

Currently second in the FedEx Cup standings as the tour schedule resumes at Kapalua Resort, Bradley said he firmly believes he is in the best position in years to succeed and achieve his goals. He has backed off his carnivore diet slightly, but only because he doesn’t seek to lose additional weight. He’d dearly love to add a few more pounds in holding trophies and other cups.

“I want to make the Ryder Cup team,” he said, ticking off goals for the year. “I’m second in the FedEx Cup, I want to stay there near the top. I went to 25th in the world, and I want to go forward. And I want to contend in more tournaments. I feel like, if I’m in better shape and feel better, physically, that’s only going to help.

“You know, a lot of people when they see me, they want to give me advice. ‘Now is when you should bulk up and lift.’ And I that’s not really what I’m looking to do. I’m just trying to feel better on the course. And I feel like I play my best golf when I’m super lean, kind of like when I first came out on tour. You know, it’s very easy to fall into when you’re out here to do what everyone does and what you’re hearing. But it’s important to learn what’s best for you as a player.”

For Keegan Bradley, he’s finding that less of him is becoming more fulfilling.

The post Former major champ reveals weight-loss diet that helped him shed 30 pounds in less than five months appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.