“I’ve grinded my butt off” – Collin Morikawa opens up about his ‘grind’ after taking lead at the Tour Championship

American golfer Collin Morikawa played an impressive round of golf at the 2023 Tour Championship on Thursday, August 24. He played a round of 61 to settle at the top of the leaderboard following the inaugural round of the tournament at the East Lake Golf Course in a three-way tie with fellow countryman Keegan Bradley and Norwegian golfer Viktor Hovland.

In his interview with the PGA Tour after the first round, Collin Morikawa spoke about his 'grind' this season. The American confessed that he worked hard in this whole season.

"I've grinded my butt off," said Collin.

He went on to discuss the Tour Championship. Morikawa is looking forward to winning the tournament, but his grind has had a significant impact on his performance this season.

"Making it here to the Tour Championship here at East Lake is a big goal of mine", Collin said. "Obviously, you want to continue to have good results to be able to get here. But it's been a grind. It's been a fight. It's been trying to figure out how to hit shots, how to get the ball in the hole."

"There's a lot been going on. But at the end of the day I keep loving the game more and more. And that's what's awesome is that even though the ups and the downs and the bad rounds and good rounds it's like I still want to get back out there and figure it out," he concluded.

The 2023 Tour Championship is the final FedEx Cup event. It features the top 30 golfers in the FedEx Cup standings and will have its finale on Sunday, August 27.

Collin Morikawa's performance at the 2023 Tour Championship

Collin Morikawa started the game on Thursday, August 24 with a birdie on the first hole of the opening round of the Tour Championship. He made par on the second, third, and fourth holes before adding a birdie on the fifth and an eagle on the sixth.

He made two birdies and one eagle on the front nine and five birdies on the back nine. He canned a birdie on the 10th hole before adding another one on the 12th and three back-to-back birdies on the 16th, 17th, and 18th holes to finish with a score of 61.

Collin Morikawa started with a score of -1 and added -9 to his score, finishing with a total of -10. He will start the second round of the tournament on Friday, August 25 with Keegan Bradley on the first hole at 2:00 pm ET.

Here are the tee times of the 2023 Tour Championship Friday round (All time in ET):

11:26 a.m. — Nick Taylor, Emiliano Grillo
11:37 a.m. — Sungjae Im, Taylor Moore
11:48 a.m. — Tommy Fleetwood, Jordan Spieth
11:59 a.m. — Si Woo Kim, Tony Finau
12:10 p.m. — Lucas Glover, Corey Conners
12:21 p.m. — Sam Burns, Max Homa
12:32 p.m. — Sepp Straka, Jason Day
12:43 p.m. — Rickie Fowler, Patrick Cantlay
12:54 p.m. — Brian Harman, Tom Kim
1:05 p.m. — Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark
1:16 p.m. — Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton
1:27 p.m. — Matt Fitzpatrick, Rory McIlroy
1:38 p.m. — Adam Schenk, Russell Henley
1:49 p.m. — Viktor Hovland, Scottie Scheffler
2:00 p.m. — Collin Morikawa, Keegan Bradley