Collin Morikawa says his Tour Championship Day 1 outing felt like the ‘longest run of birdies’
This week, Collin Morikawa is playing at the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Course. In the first round, Morikawa carded one birdie on the front nine and six consecutive birdies on the back nine from holes 10 through 15 to end with a score of 66.
Following that, he reflected upon his experience in the round. Speaking during the post-round press conference, Morikawa said he felt that he had the longest run of birdies despite the hot day (via ASAP Sports):
“Very hot today. I guess this is the longest run of birdies that you've had…after nine I told myself to start only thinking about my shot and not worrying about if the ball is going to be perfect or not. We executed some shots, made some putts,” Morikawa said.
"Look, the game is good enough to come out here and win. I've just got to get out of my own head. I've talked a lot about that. It's hard because you try and perfect this game, and it is what it is. Sometimes it doesn't go your way, but you make doable scores. Today just got in a nice rhythm kind of around that turn,” he added.
When asked to share his experience in the course, Morikawa detailed the differences he experienced while playing and said,
“Before, the greens were pretty standard. They were just kind of circular, all back to front, not a lot of slope. You've got a lot more slope now. I think it penalizes you a little bit more if you're in the rough. You're going to get jumpers so you can't necessarily run it up and just end up in the middle of the green as easy as you did before,” Collin Morikawa said.
Collin Morikawa is in second place on the leaderboard behind Scottie Scheffler, who shot -6 under.
When will Collin Morikawa and others tee off for the second round of the Tour Championship?
Collin Morikawa will play at 2 pm with Scottie Scheffler. Before them, Xander Schauffele and Adam Scott will start at 1:49 pm. Wyndham Clark and Sam Burns will tee off at 1:38 pm. Hideki Matsuyama is paired with Keegan Bradley to start at 1:27 pm.
Here's the full list of tee times and pairings for round two of the Tour Championship (all times in ET):
Tee No. 1
11:16 a.m. – Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Billy Horschel
11:27 a.m. – Tommy Fleetwood, Chris Kirk,
11:38 a.m. – Akshay Bhatia, Tom Hoge,
11:49 a.m. – Tony Finau, Byeong Hun An,
12:00 p.m. – Robert MacIntyre, Viktor Hovland
12:16 p.m. – Ludvig Åberg, Sepp Straka
12:27 p.m. – Shane Lowry, Sungjae Im
12:38 p.m. – Aaron Rai, Matthieu Pavon
12:49 p.m. – Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas
1:00 p.m. – Russell Henley, Patrick Cantlay
1:16 p.m. – Sahith Theegala, Taylor Pendrith
1:27 p.m. – Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley
1:38 p.m. – Sam Burns, Wyndham Clark
1:49 p.m. – Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott
2:00 p.m. – Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa