Lowry captures Open Championship 

DUBLIN, Ohio – Collin Morikawa knew what he had to do. He had just seen a prayer of a 50-foot birdie putt drop into the cup. And like those two dozen people standing by the 18th green at Muirfield Village, including Rickie Fowler, who was filming the playoff on his smart phone, he had heard Justin Thomas’ guttural yell in celebration. RELATED: Final leaderboard | What’s in Morikawa’s bag? If Morikawa was going to have any chance of winning the inaugural Workday Charity Open, he had to convert his own birdie putt from 24 feet on that first playoff hole. There was no other option. So, he gathered himself and huddled with his caddie, J.J. Jakovac. “We agreed on a line, hit it perfect exactly how we wanted, and really helped that J.T. had that putt about halfway in between during regulation,” Morikawa recalled. “So, I kind of knew what it did at the end. So as long as I got my line started on there, we had a good shot at making it.” And he did. That clutch putt didn’t seal Morikawa’s victory – he would two-putt from 10 feet on the third extra hole to make that happen – but it was the signature moment in a roller-coaster afternoon of lead changes and emotion that Thomas would later call simply a “bizarre” day. “It would have been a fun day to have some fans just in terms of the ups and downs and the shot making,” acknowledged the disappointed runner-up, who lost a two-shot lead on the front nine, then built it back to three on the back with five birdies and an eagle in an eight-hole stretch. Thomas unraveled with bogeys on the 16th and 18th holes, though, and coupled with Morikawa’s 8-foot birdie putt on No. 17, the stage was set for the frantic and frenetic playoff. As Morikawa later said, it was a “long, long 21 holes.” Later, though, after fulfilling all his media obligations, the winner could relax. He posted a photo of himself holding the crystal trophy on Twitter. Morikawa was sipping one of Muirfield Village’s signature chocolate milkshakes, too. “Well done, it’s not our last battle,” responded a respectful Thomas, who had spoken Saturday about how he expected to have Morikawa as a teammate on Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup teams in the not-too-distant future. The win was the second of Morikawa’s career, which not coincidentally gives him more victories than he has missed cuts and lifted him to sixth in the FedExCup. The steady 23-year-old, who closed with a 66, had a streak of 22 straight weekends played, second only to the great Tiger Woods, that ended at the Travelers Championship two weeks ago. Not to mention, Morikawa nearly won the Charles Schwab Challenge, the first PGA TOUR event played after the COVID-19 hiatus, five weeks ago. He was involved in a playoff there, too, but missed a 4-footer on the first extra hole to lose to Daniel Berger. Morikawa called Sunday’s win, which came on one of the TOUR’s most respected courses in Muirfield Village, “amazing.” And he’ll get a chance to make it an unusual two-in-a-row at Jack Nicklaus’ place this week at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. Morikawa made it clear on Sunday he wants to be known for more than consistency – not only by his words but by his actions. “This is a huge kind of stepping-stone,” he said. “We got No. 1 out of the way, we got No. 2, let the gates just open and let’s just keep going because obviously it was a tough loss at Colonial a month ago, but I learned a lot. I learned a lot from last week or a week and a half ago at Travelers after my missed cut. “This is just more positives, more learning for me, and I’ve got to go back to, okay, what did I do great, what did I do wrong this week, how can I get better, move on to next week and make a lot of birdies.” This time last year, Morikawa had his degree in business administration from the University of California-Berkeley in hand, but his post-graduate work was just beginning on the PGA TOUR. He earned his PGA TOUR card the hard way, gaining status as a special temporary member before winning his sixth start the Barracuda Championship, played opposite the World Golf Championships-FedEx Championship, to lock up job security for the next two years. Ironically, one of those helping him along the way was Thomas, who invited Morikawa to dinner the week he made his pro debut at the RBC Canadian Open. “He’s someone that has kind of helped me just get comfortable,” Morikawa said. “Props to him. He’s an awesome player, awesome dude, as well. “I wouldn’t say he’s like been there every practice round for me but making things easier and just telling me when we had that dinner just over a year ago, just telling me if you’re good enough, you’re going to get out here at some point. Everyone’s path is different. You don’t know how quick or how slow it’s going to get there, but if you’re good enough you’re going to get here.” Not only has Morikawa, who won a Korn Ferry Tour event as a freshman in college, gotten to the game’s highest level, he’s solidified his spot there. He’s nothing if not a fast learner, and more days like Sunday are only going to help. “It’s not a surprise,” he said honestly. “It’s just a lot of belief in myself that I could do this, and like I said, I go back to being comfortable. Comfortable, I think is the best word for a lot of these guys out here because they’ve been out here for many years. “They know the courses, they know where to hit it, and for me it’s getting as comfortable as I can as quickly as I can. I felt a lot more comfortable in this first hole playoff than I did in that last playoff at Colonial, but I still wouldn’t say I’m at where I felt perfectly fine. “By the second playoff hole today I felt very comfortable, and I knew let’s just play some golf.” And that’s what Morikawa does best.

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DALLAS – Full disclosure: I’m the wrong person to write this story. Anybody familiar with the writing team here at PGATOUR.COM knows that our Ben Everill – born in Wollongong, a coastal city south of Sydney — is our expert on all things Australian. He waves the Aussie flag so much that I have to remind him that yes, there are decent PGA TOUR pros from other parts of the world (especially from Texas, my home state). But Ben is not here at the AT&T Byron Nelson, taking a well-deserved week off. I’m at Trinity Forest and since I’m wearing a wide-brim hat that looks like part of Crocodile Dundee’s apparel script and have seen two Men at Work concerts, it’s on my watch to talk up the Aussies this week. Not that they need my help. Marc Leishman and Adam Scott and Matt Jones – all inside the top six through two rounds — are doing a fine job of it thus far. There are 13 Aussies in the field this week, and every time you turn around, it seems like one of them is making a move up the leaderboard. Pretty sure “Waltzing Matildaâ€� has become the unofficial dance song at the Pavilion party scene. Leishman, of course, has made the biggest move. He followed his 10-under 61 on Trinity Forest’s TOUR debut Thursday with a solid 5-under 66 and now takes a one-shot lead entering the weekend. He spent the first two days with Scott as one of his playing partners, and you would’ve thought they were playing a friendly at the National Golf Club on the Mornington Peninsula instead of a links-style course a few miles south of downtown Dallas. “It was great playing with Scotty,â€� Leishman said. “I think this course has got a real Australian flavor to it. Reminds me a lot of home. So that might have something to do with it.â€� Hitting 25 of 28 fairways, 33 of 36 greens and rolling in nearly 244 feet of putts in the first two days also might have something to do with it. Backing up a low round with another good one can be difficult, but Leishman got an early boost when he made a birdie putt from 55 feet, 10 inches on his third hole, the par-3 12th. He was off and running from there. “I love playing with Marc, especially a guy that is on form,â€� Scott said. “I almost felt like I had to hop on his coattails and get dragged along the birdie train a bit with him because he was running away yesterday. He’s a guy who I know loves this style of golf, so even feeding off some of his shot choices or club choices was easy for me. Kind of worked to my advantage.â€� Leishman was initially skeptical of the tournament move from TPC Four Seasons to Trinity Forest, mainly because his track record at the previous course was so solid – three top-5 finishes and three other top-15s in nine career starts. Once he saw the new venue, though, he was on board. He shouldn’t have been so worried. The AT&T Byron Nelson has always treated Australians well, no matter what course it’s played on. Peter Thomson was the first International winner of this event, in 1956 at Preston Hollow; the three previous winners, by the way, were Byron Nelson, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan. Bruce Devlin won in 1969 at Preston Trail; tied for second was another Aussie, Bruce Crampton. And at TPC Four Seasons, Scott (2008), Jason Day (2010) and Steven Bowditch (2015) have each won in the last 10 years. Bowditch, in fact, was even married at the resort, and took wedding photos on the 18th green. Australia is the only International country with two recipients of the Byron Nelson International Junior Golf Award, awarded to junior players not only for their performance inside the ropes but also inside the classroom and in the community. Ricky Kato was honored in 2012; Viraat Badhwar in 2013. So with that history as a backdrop, should we really be surprised that the Aussies are thriving this week? “Look, I think both of us feel comfortable on this kind of course,â€� Scott said. “You can see by the type of shots we pick to hit and some of the situations.â€� Added Jones: “I like to be able to bounce into pins, use slopes. It’s much more of an artistic way of playing golf instead of just hitting it and getting as close as you can … It just fits my eye.” It’s not just those Aussies at the top of the leaderboard. Cameron Percy is 6 under and off to one of his best starts in more than a year. Robert Allenby is 5 under and made the cut — it’s just his sixth made cut in 30 starts since the fall of 2015. Geoff Ogilvy — more on him later — made the cut, just his second in his last 12 starts. Even the guy who’s closest to Leishman sees Australian overtones. Aaron Wise — born in South Africa but raised in the United States — won the NCAA individual and team titles with Oregon, and considers Bandon Dunes a decent comparson for Trinity Forest. But he sees a better one. “I would relate it mostly to when I played over in Melbourne, Australia at Royal Melbourne,” said Wise, who’s 14 under after his 63 on Friday. “The fairways are firm and fast and the ball is going so far. You got to manage that. That’s probably the closest thing.” When developers first decided to build a course on the landfill at Trinity Forest, six golf design firms submitted bids. One of those was the firm led by past U.S. Open champ Ogilvy. Although he didn’t get the job – it went to Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore – the Australian remains so enamored of this place that he was featured in a series of videos explaining some of its nuances. Earlier this week, Ogilvy pointed out that Trinity Forest would take players out of their comfort zone – which, he noted, was a good thing. “We get cuddled in the way we get treated,â€� Ogilvy said, “but variety is one of the best attributes golf has, I think. It’s played in all sorts of different places and all sorts of different environments. “It’s a more rounded, well-rounded TOUR if we have a bit more stray in the set-up. It will make the players on a course like this, if they’re uncomfortable – it will make us better players. That can only be good for the game.â€� Australians wanting to make it big on the pro golf stage know they’ll have to give up the comforts of a Sandbelt course and play in either the United States or Europe. They’re used to making adjustments, feeling uncomfortable, having to think their way around a course. Consider Leishman’s second shot at the par-5 first hole. He pulled a 5-iron from 215 yards and aimed 50 feet left of the pin. It was a conservative approach but if he found trouble on the hole, he feared the possibility of a big number. That was his mindset for many of the holes through the first two rounds. “Very rarely aiming straight at a pin,â€� he said. “You’re always trying to play a little bit safer because you know how bad it is if you were to miss the green and then it runs off.â€� Scott and Jones, meanwhile, shot 65s to each finish at 10 under. Scott’s round was bogey-free while Jones fought back from a double bogey on his second hole of the day. Scott, of course, is trying to play his way into the U.S. Open by moving into the top 60 of the world rankings. He’s currently 65, so a big finish this weekend could do the trick. Playing a links-style course – he said it reminds him of the Lost Farm course at Barnbougle in Tasmania, and even his redesigned home course back in Royal Queensland – might have come at a perfect time. “I didn’t grow up on the Sandbelt, but I learned to play quickly as a kid down there,â€� Scott said. “Definitely the last eight or nine years, my understanding of links courses, especially at Open Championships, has gone way up.â€� Leishman and Scott are not playing together in Saturday’s third round but would love to be reunited in the final group Sunday. Two Aussies going head-to-head – that would really be something, especially Down Under. As for me, it’s time to wrap up this story. Starting to get hungry and need a little nibble. For some reason, I have a craving for Vegemite and maybe a few Anzac biscuits. Can’t imagine why.

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THE OVERVIEW Some players prefer to rest the week before a major championship. Phil Mickelson, on the other hand, prefers to play. “Some people feel like if they win, they’ve expended too much energy and don’t carry it over,â€� Mickelson said. “For me, I’ve actually won two of my five majors winning the week before and I think it would be momentum that I would carry over to the U.S. Open. That’s why I would love to play well and hopefully come out on top.â€� No one has played better than Mickelson in Memphis over the last five years since he added the FedEx St. Jude Classic to his schedule before the U.S. Open. Since 2013, he’s never finished worse than T11 with 15 sub-70 rounds and two runner-ups. No one will confuse TPC Southwind with Oakmont or Shinnecock, but the course setup has given Mickelson the opportunity to work on sharpening his mental game and accuracy — two things that are absolutely imperative at the U.S. Open, long considered the toughest test in professional golf. “I feel the best way for me to prepare for the U.S. Open is to get in contention and get sharp mentally and with my game,â€� Mickelson said. “That’s what playing here in Memphis does. Precision is a key factor at this course. “[TPC Southwind] doesn’t beat you up with length, you don’t have to go out and bomb it. You’ve got to be precise with every shot off the tee.â€� Mickelson will not only need to be precise off the tee this week, but at Shinnecock as well. Given his strong history in Memphis, Mickelson spent the early part of the week logging practice rounds at the Long Island course, even getting in a practice round with Villanova basketball coach Jay Wright. “I feel like all areas of your game are going to be tested and skill is going to be a huge factor, especially chipping and putting around the greens,â€� Mickelson said. “Very challenging but very fair. It’s not hack-it-out rough, it’s fairway height, but the greens are so difficult that it’s hard to get the ball close and I love the challenge.â€� While Mickelson has his sights set on Shinnecock, he isn’t looking beyond this week. Given his respect for TPC Southwind and the tournament, Mickelson admitted he’d love to somehow find a way to fill two holes in his Hall-of-Fame resume over the next two weeks. “I very much would like to win [the FedEx St. Jude Classic],â€� Mickelson said. “Winning earlier this year meant a lot to me, and I’d love to add a couple more this year and this is an ideal spot. I know I’ll be in it on Sunday, I just hope I shoot low enough to pull through.â€� THREE PLAYERS TO PONDER Phil Mickelson Very few players have a better track record at TPC Southwind than Mickelson. His last five starts include two T2s and a T3. With the U.S. Open on tap, this has turned into a perfect week to sharpen his game. Joaquín Niemann Already has Special Temporary Membership on TOUR with three top 10s in his first five starts as a pro. His ability and fearless nature were on display during the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, where he finished T6. Brooks Koepka Played the FedEx St. Jude Classic last year before going on to win the following week at the U.S. Open. Last four starts at TPC Southwind feature a T2, T3 and a scoring average of 68.56. Much of his recent success this season — he finished runner-up at the Fort Worth Invitational — can be attributed to a healthy wrist. THE FLYOVER A closer look at TPC Southwind’s finishing hole, the 453-yard par-4 18th. Last year, it played to a stroke average of 4.140, making it the sixth most difficult hole on the course, and ranked as the 15th most difficult closing hole on TOUR last season. Just like its shorter but slightly more severe cousin, the par-4 12th, the 18th’s primary defense is water. A total of 839 shots have ended up in the water since 2003, fifth most of any hole on TOUR during that span. THE LANDING ZONE The 485-yard fifth ranked as the toughest hole on the course during last season’s tournament, with a scoring average of 4.240. Finding the fairway is the biggest challenge, as the hole ranked as the second toughest to hit, with just 28 percent of the field finding the short grass off the tee during the final round. A large tree on the right side of the fairway comes into play, while the left side is lined with spectator mounds. WEATHER CHECK From PGA TOUR meteorologist Stewart Williams: “High pressure will influence the weather on Thursday and Friday with mostly sunny skies and hot afternoon temperatures. Humidity levels will increase each day and by Friday the heat index will approach 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A weak front is forecast to drop down into Tennessee by Sunday and could produce a few scattered thunderstorms.â€� For the latest weather news from Memphis, Tennessee check out PGATOUR.COM’s Weather Hub. SOUND CHECK I think a lot of it reminds me of the golf course that I grew up on. Bermuda green, a lot of familiar tee shots, and overall, it just feels like I’m back home. I know it’s Memphis, but it reminds me a lot Florida. BY THE NUMBERS 4 – Daniel Berger became the fourth back-to-back winner at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, joining David Toms, Lee Trevino and Dave Hill. 4,964 – Since 2003, TPC Southwind has surrendered 4,964 balls in the water. The total number of balls in the water is 1,562 more than TPC Sawgrass with 3,707. 6 – Since 2007, six of the 11 FedEx St. Jude Classic champions have qualified for the TOUR Championship. SCATTERSHOTS There’s something about TPC Southwind that prepares a player to win the U.S. Open. The last two champions (Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson) played the week prior in Memphis before going on to win their first major title. In the ShotLink era (Since 2003), six FedEx St. Jude Classic champions did not find the water at TPC Southwind en route to their respective victories and three of the last four champions at this event since 2014. Phil Mickelson is a combined 41-under par, recording 18 of 20 rounds of par or better and 90 birdies or better. Mickelson has record four top 10s in five starts at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, tied with Billy Horschel for the most top-10 finishes at this event in this stretch.

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