Can Phil go wire-to-wire at Desert Classic?

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Bravo! Bravissimo! Just weeks ago, Italian Francesco Molinari broke a 70-year drought by winning on the PGA TOUR at the Quicken Loans National and now he has upstaged himself with his Claret Jug claiming efforts. Welcome to the Monday Finish where Molinari became the first Italian to win a major championship, continuing a serious purple patch of form with his efforts at Carnoustie. A healthy congratulations also to Troy Merritt, who needed an actual Monday finish to win the Barbasol Championship. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. The search for the perfect golf swing has been going on since before Thomas Kincaid tried to master it, and write it down, in 1687. Through the times of Old and Young Tom Morris. Past the likes of Harry Vardon, Walter Hagan, Bobby Jones, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan. Into the era of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus. And, of course, it continued through Tiger Woods and the plethora of young talent we see before us now. The reality is – there is no perfect swing. But if you find one that works – and you can replicate it often – you just might make something of yourself at this game. Francesco Molinari’s ball-striking of late has been downright incredible. Many of us would wish for that sort of consistency in our game for just one round. The way in which his swing held up on Sunday as Carnoustie showed some of its infamous teeth was incredible. The only player in the field to go bogey-free on Sunday (he also was blemish-free on Saturday!), his 2-under 69 deserved the reward. The first Italian to win a major. Incredible stuff. It came not long after he destroyed the field at the Quicken Loans National. That week Molinari had a birdie putt from inside 20 feet on 40 of his 72 holes. (55.6 percent). Insanity. While distance has clearly changed the game and been advantageous to big athletes, it is great to see measured accuracy can still flourish. Now Molinari missed plenty of fairways at Carnoustie … but it was generally by mere fractions and not into dangerous bunkers or deep rough. His last six starts worldwide now include three wins and two seconds. If he keeps replicating that swing of his there is no telling when this run might end. 2. While his mechanics are one thing, you also have to pay special tribute to Molinari’s mental toughness. Sunday produced one of the all-time great final rounds in terms of entertainment. Tougher winds and pin placements meant the difficulty of Carnoustie came out. And with a history of players coming from behind at the venue fresh in everyone’s minds there were multiple challengers. There were stumbles from the guys out front, including the defending champion Jordan Spieth. There were charges – from the likes of Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose, no less. At one point a six-man playoff for the Claret Jug looked extremely plausible. But amongst all this hysteria and roars, Molinari stayed calm. Playing with Woods he could have easily been pulled into the madness. For a good stretch it appeared Woods was about to produce history. Woods pulled ahead of the Italian early in the round. Others might have tried to chase him. Molinari stayed steady. And Woods, like the others, dropped a few shots. The game plan never wavered. The pressure mounted but – at least on the outside – Molinari showed no signs of feeling it. That’s a special type of human. 3. If you haven’t been converted to the side that says Woods can win again – you’re too tough. Two early birdies on Sunday and the golf world was heading for meltdown. Woods joined the lead, then held it alone. Most likely vintage Woods – the guy who notched up 79 PGA TOUR wins – puts the hammer down from there. But this version still has some kinks. Woods used to be able to recover from his bad shots. But a double bogey on the 11th hole was a killer blow and when followed by a bogey the dream became a long shot. But hey, perspective still needs to be maintained. A year ago you would have received better odds on Woods never playing an Open again as opposed to leading on Sunday in one. His return from back surgery continues to take strides upward. And his T6 finish was enough to have him sneak into the field at the World Golf Championships – Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club. He has won there eight times. Maybe this was all part of the script … a farewell to Akron with a famous victory anyone? 4. As always, there can only be one winner and the list of those who got very close was long in Scotland. Along with Woods having his chance, Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy, Kevin Kisner and Xander Schauffele tied second. Kevin Chappell could’ve stolen it. Jordan Spieth let it slip. We tend to overanalyze the guys who don’t win. Point out what they could’ve done. But all of the contenders added to the incredible story this week. Rose had to birdie the last on Friday to make the cut so his weekend was superb. McIlroy had early stumbles Sunday so we shifted focus elsewhere … then, as true champions do, he eagled the 14th and announced his intentions. Kisner had bunker troubles early but he never gave up, showing fighting spirit. It was similar for Schauffele, who could have given up when he dropped four shots in three holes. Instead, last season’s TOUR Championship winner fought back and showed the future is bright. Spieth’s Sunday 76 was the most deflating. But his form hasn’t been great this season so it wasn’t too shocking. Instead, let’s hope the former FedExCup champ takes the positives out of the week and surges forward. 5. While the fight for the Jug was going on in Scotland in near perfect weather, the Barbasol Championship faced multiple weather delays that stretched into Monday. The opposite field events are always critical for so many players looking to keep their FedExCup hopes alive and Troy Merritt was no exception. Since claiming a breakout win at the 2015 Quicken Loans National, Merritt had been unable to truly kick on like he would have preferred. He was 56th in the FedExCup that year but then barely snuck into the Playoffs the season after. Last year he slumped to 151st and had to fight his way back via the Web.com Finals. Entering this week he sat 131st just looking to surge his way into the top 125. Now he’s projected to 65th and has a two-year exemption. His poise under the gun down the stretch was impressive as multiple players tried to run him down. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. In the space of 21 days, Molinari moved from 123rd to 7th in the FedExCup. 2. Molinari averaged 307.37 yards off the tee and hit just 26 of 60 fairways. But he was able to hit 48 of 72 greens. He needed just 111 putts for his four rounds and three-putted just once. 3. It was Molinari’s third win in last six starts worldwide. (Won – The Open Championship; T2 – John Deere Classic; Won – Quicken Loans National; T25 – U.S. Open; 2nd – Italian Open; Won – BMW PGA Championship) 4. The last three Open Championship winners at Carnoustie have trailed going into the final round (Francesco Molinari – three back in 2018; Padraig Harrington – six back in 2007; Paul Lawrie – 10 back in 1999). 5. Rory McIlroy now owns top-five results, including victory in 2014, in his last four appearances at The Open. (T2 2018, T4 2017, T5 2016, Won 2014). Also posted a T3 in 2010, giving him top fives in half of his 10 starts.

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The Cal Bears had done fine, under the circumstances. Missing two players, one of them at Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada Q School and the other tending to a family obligation, the Bears finished fourth at a tournament at rival Stanford last March. The prevailing drift: Fourth wasn’t bad, all things considered. Collin Morikawa wasn’t having it. “He called me out on it,� recalls Cal men’s golf coach Walter Chun. “It was one-on-one, very respectful. He taught me a lot about being a coach. He’s so driven; it’s part of what made him the player he was, and what makes him the player he is.� To wit, Morikawa could have been content, upon getting his Business Administration degree at Cal last spring, to aim only for a spot in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Instead, he finished T2 at the 3M Open in just his fourth PGA TOUR start as a professional, earning Special Temporary Member status, and won the Barracuda Championship three weeks later, qualifying for the Sentry Tournament of Champions (T7 last week) and earning a two-year exemption on TOUR. Morikawa, who joined Cameron Champ, Adam Long and Matthew Wolff as players to win last season in their ninth career start or earlier, will be among the players to watch at this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii. His paternal grandparents were born in Maui, and he spent so much time in Hawaii growing up, on family visits and for other special occasions, he says he feels right at home. His control game might be a better fit for cozy Waialae Country Club than Sentry’s brawny Kapalua, and it speaks to his lofty reputation that no one would be shocked if he wins. That goes for this week, and most any other week, too. “There are no holes in his game – at all,� says Maverick McNealy, a rival when he was at Stanford, a teammate when they played in the Palmer and Walker Cups, and now a pal with whom Morikawa plays when home in Las Vegas. “He’s very nice, respectful, humble. But I think that humility comes from confidence.� How good is Morikawa? At the fall’s Safeway Open (T10), he shot a second-round 64 in which he made seven birdies from inside 10 feet. Had he played enough rounds to qualify for statistical rankings last season, he’d have led the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and also been in the top 10 in Driving Accuracy, Greens in Regulation, and Strokes Gained: Approach the Green. Says college coach Chun: “I think he’ll win at Torrey Pines or Riviera to start the year. He’s a West Coast kid, he knows poa annua greens, and he’ll be motivated to win. When he wants to accomplish something, he tends to do it.� Only occasionally do you remember that he’s only 22, and graduated just over six months ago. Asked why he was looking at his phone after round three of the Safeway, Morikawa replied, “I’m just looking for what my next pairing will be. It’s still exciting for me.� It might be the only time Morikawa has looked or sounded like a newbie. The head of a caddie J.J. Jakovac won two individual national championships for Division II Chico State. He turned pro, didn’t get through Q School, burned out, and took a job with Ryan Moore. They lasted 7-1/2 years, parting at the PGA Championship last May. Jakovac went home to Napa, California, where he bonded with his 1-year-old son, Bo, as his wife returned to work. He was in no hurry to get back on TOUR. Talents like Morikawa, though, come along all too infrequently. A three-time first-team All-American, he almost won a Korn Ferry Tour event as an amateur, losing a playoff at the 2016 Air Capital Classic. And by May he was ready to go pro. Figuring he was already too late to get the bag, Jakovac, 37, asked an agent friend to help him reach out to Morikawa’s nascent team. “I got very lucky,� Jakovac says. They met at the U.S. Open sectional qualifier in Columbus, Ohio. Morikawa advanced (he later finished T35 at Pebble Beach), and their partnership was born. “The best thing about him is his head,� Jakovac says. “I know the courses, but he thinks like a caddie out there, which is cool. He doesn’t play too conservative; he plays smart. He’s very methodical about the way he plots it around. “I was saying this to someone,� he adds, “and they said, ‘So he’s like a 10-year veteran.’ I said, ‘He’s better than most of those guys.’ In the mental aspect.� Morikawa was asked about this at Kapalua last week. How did he explain his early success, plus that of Wolff, Joaquin Niemann and others? “It’s just a lot of self-belief,� he said. “We believe that we can do it no matter where we are.� To make a food analogy – Morikawa calls out great meals on social media and carries wedges stamped with SOURDOUGH TOAST, BACON, HASH BROWNS and EGGS BENEDICT – if most new pros are a bunch of promising ingredients, then Morikawa comes hot out of the oven with everything baked in. “He was destined to do this,� says Steve Desimone, Cal’s longtime men’s golf coach, who helped recruit Morikawa before leaving the job for health reasons. Desimone, who was at Berkeley for more than 37 years, calls Morikawa “mature beyond his years� and, tellingly, “the easiest kid I ever coached.� Which begs the question: How did he get so golf-smart? How is it that his golf IQ recalls another product of the Southern California golf scene, Tiger Woods? To answer that, you have to talk to Rick Sessinghaus. An unusual path Morikawa’s younger brother, Garrett, 16, is into soccer, not golf. Their parents, Blaine and Debbie, weren’t accomplished players, either. “It’s kind of my own thing,� Morikawa says of golf. “My first lessons were at this mini junior camp at Scholl Canyon in Glendale, the city over from where I grew up. I was 5.� He got the basics from a married couple who taught juniors, but he always noticed the other instructor there, a man on the other end of the driving range. Sessinghaus. He taught better players, and soon enough, Morikawa was tabbed as one of them. “He had some good fundamentals coming to me,� says Sessinghaus, who has a doctorate in sports psychology and is the mental performance coach for UCLA’s golf team. “I work heavily on the mental side and course management and strategy. “With Collin, at an early age, we were doing a lot of our lessons on the course.� What was the percentage shot? Where was the best miss? How could he play to his strengths? More than mechanics, these problem-solving sessions became the focus. “There’s a lot of great swings out there but not many golfers,� Sessinghaus says. “He learned to play at a high level. Collin’s been wired that way; I’ve tried to cultivate it, raise his golf I.Q. by putting him in different situations. “He’s going to look at a golf course and create a strategy based on his capabilities. He’s not going to overpower it but can plot his way around based on his strengths.� From age 8 through high school, Morikawa met with Sessinghaus weekly. (When he went to Berkeley, they sometimes worked over the phone.) Morikawa’s swing was so fundamentally solid, they put even greater emphasis on the mental side. The on-course problem-solving wasn’t just a series of theoretical exercises; as much as he could, Sessinghaus tried to create the stress of actual competition. “I believe development has to be done on the golf course to learn how to compete, to deal with pressure, to learn how to think,� he says. “The competitions at the end of a lesson were, ‘Hey, you have one ball and one ball only, let’s see what you do.’ “It was a bunker shot,� he adds, “closest to the pin, a wedge off a downslope, a par 3. A lot of it was trash talk. You’d win and say, ‘OK, I got you.’ It was about the contest itself. That was a constant for us, competition. I probably won more at the start and then when he was 16 or 17, it turned quickly.� A prized recruit, Morikawa nevertheless got to Cal only to find out his short game was lacking. He worked on it until it was TOUR-quality. He became the No. 1-ranked amateur, turned pro, and won in Reno in just his eighth start, closing with three straight birdies to beat Troy Merritt in the modified Stableford format. Surprising? Not really. Sessinghaus has never seen Morikawa look out of sorts in the heat of battle. Well, almost never. When the new TOUR winner was tabbed to throw out the first pitch for his beloved L.A. Dodgers last Labor Day, he was edgy. His mom, dad, brother, girlfriend (Katherine) and manager waited patiently as he walked out to the mound. That caddie Jakovac, a devout San Francisco Giants fan, was probably going to give him the needle if he made a lousy throw probably didn’t help, either. “That was the first time I’ve seen Collin nervous,� Sessinghaus says with a laugh. “It was kind of fun to see that vulnerable side of him; this was totally outside his comfort zone. In warm-ups he was doing fine, but when the pitch came, he threw it into the dirt a little bit. We had fun with that.� For now, he’ll stick to the golf course, where Cal’s Desimone says he’s never seen Morikawa pick a wrong club, and never seen a player with better distance control. Where will he pick up win No. 2? With Morikawa’s mindset, it could be anywhere. “I think a lot of people aren’t embracing competing to be great and to win,� says Sessinghaus. “We’ve watered it down to, Let’s just try our best. I get that, but Collin has always believed he could win. Talking with J.J., his game sets up for 90% of the courses he’s going to play because he hits it so well. “There may be a couple bomb-and-gauge courses where there’s no consequences for a miss,� he adds, “and at those ones he might not have as good a shot, but other than that, he’s going to have a shot to win every time.�

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