AUGUSTA, Ga. — Collin Morikawa is set to play in the Masters this week despite dealing with an ongoing back injury and withdrawing from last week’s Valero Texas Open.
“The honest truth is I’m taking it day by day,” Morikawa said Monday. “It’s not exactly where I want to be, and it’s unfortunate, but that’s just the body, and I can’t push it.”
Morikawa, who won the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, has not played since pulling out of the Players Championship after just one hole of play with back spasms. The two-time major champion said Monday that he has had MRIs done on his back, that it’s “nothing worse than what it’s been” and that he expects to be able to get through it.
“It’s been a little bit of a mental battle just trying to trust where it’s at,” Morikawa said. “The back actually feels fine. It’s just other parts of the body not cooperating a little bit how I want.”
On Monday, Morikawa showed up to Augusta National and practiced. He said he has been able to hit balls at home and acknowledged that the mental challenge will be more of a task than anything physical. Around this particular golf course, being uncomfortable does not bode well for trying to obtain a green jacket.
“I had never gone through this. I had hurt myself before and never had to worry about swinging on the golf course because a lot of the stuff I had done — I hurt myself in the gym,” Morikawa said. “When you hurt yourself swinging, it’s a completely different beast of itself because you just don’t know. There’s a little bit of a commitment, trust.”
Morikawa was tracking to have one of his better seasons in recent years. Aside from the win at Pebble Beach, Morikawa had two other top-10 finishes this season and still ranks first on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: approach.
“It’s frustrating, but at the same time, I can’t do anything stupid and push my body in a way it doesn’t want to do,” Morikawa said. “Sometimes you’ve got to find other ways to get around a golf course. So I’m kind of making a different game plan than I think I’ve come up with in the past. Some shots that you might be able to hit in the past, you might not be able to hit right now. But yeah, it’s a work in progress.”
Despite the setback, Morikawa remains optimistic that he can perform well this week, especially given that his short game and putting feel as good as ever.
“I just got to be able to get the ball [to the green], which is like the opposite of how I’ve been, I think, my entire career,” Morikawa said. “It’s just part of it. I think however and whenever I get out of this little back stuff and body stuff, just go out and trust the things that I’ve been doing, and hopefully they click again.”
