ORLANDO, Fla. – There’s a fine line on the PGA Tour between searching and success.
There are countless examples of players who were looking for answers for a game that had become increasingly difficult before an epiphany moment arrives and pushes them over the hump to victory.
“There’s a difference of like going into a week and finding something that week and just kind of playing with it, which you can win, I’ve done it in the past,” Collin Morikawa said Saturday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
To be clear, Morikawa is not searching. In fact, his game this season has largely been stress free, much like his third round at Bay Hill, which continues to be groomed to crusty perfection thanks to warm sunshine and a relentless, dry wind.
Morikawa missed just four fairways and four greens on his way to a third-round 67 and a one-stroke lead over Russell Henley.
“It’s been awhile since I’ve hit my irons like this, it honestly has. Just start lines, amount of cut, we’re looking all the way back to 2021, essentially,” he said.
It’s been that way for much of 2025 with a runner-up finish to start the year in Maui followed by matching 17th-place showings at Pebble Beach and the Genesis Invitational. He finished 2024 on a similarly impressive run but this is different.
“It’s interesting. I look back at last year, obviously at the end of the year, and I never felt like my game was fully in control,” Morikawa said. “I showed up in Hawaii and I felt like the eight weeks I put in was like really, really good work. If you want to go on a long run or you want to go on a nice stretch, you really have to be in control.”
The challenge for Morikawa, beyond a baked-out Bay Hill and the year’s fastest greens, is remaining patient in his quest to win for the first time on the PGA Tour since 2023. Luckily, the return of his sublime ball-striking makes the wait easier.
“It does [make it easier to stay patient],” he said. “I fully know that it doesn’t mean that you’re going to play well. Like, it doesn’t mean that I’m just going to finish top 5 or top 10 or you’re going to be in contention. But it’s a sense of freedom when you go out and play golf and you just go play golf, try and get the ball in the hole, versus trying to think about the swing or about the stroke or whatever it may be.”
