Collin Morikawa returned to the winner’s circle behind a precision-led weekend performance at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Posting scores of 69-68-62-67 to win by one-shot. The win marks his seventh PGA TOUR title.

Prior to the start of the tournament, Morikawa switched to from the new TP5 golf ball to TP5x. During testing this week with TaylorMade Tour Reps, Morikawa found that TP5x provided enhanced spin and flight consistency.

Both balls produced stability in the wind at Pebble Beach during practice rounds, but ultimately he opted to play TP5x for its ability to cut more consistently on command.

With the all-new Microcoating technology in both TP5 and TP5x, Collin noticed a ball flight that remains tight in the wind – meaning it doesn’t knuckle or lose predictability.

The ball still allows him to play the wind, rather than eliminating it entirely, which is critical for elite shot-making.

The proof is in the pudding as Morikawa finished first in Strokes Gained Approach (9.608) and second in Greens in Regulation (60-for-72) for the tournament. In the third round, Collin went 18-for-18 in GIR with his TP5x and P·Series irons.

Collin’s Winning WITB

Source link

The three-time PGA Tour winner reflects on how 2025 changed him, why he wants a hole-in-one at TPC Scottsdale, and finding the ideal golf ball.

Ben Griffin has moved past the stage of trying to prove he belongs. Winning three times in a season, as Griffin did in 2025 (Zurich Classic, Charles Schwab Challenge, and World Wide Technology Championship), has a way of doing that. As his confidence has grown, so has his understanding of what actually matters at the highest level, from managing energy late on Sundays to trusting the golf ball he uses.

Matt and Cameron Kuchar reflect on a record-setting, emotional PNC Championship victory, blending dominant play, family memories, gratitude, and faith. 

Q. You guys came in wanting these belts, and you got it, you get to take that with you back to TCU. Talk about today and this weekend overall, how much does this mean to you to do this together?

MATT KUCHAR: This is something we’ve been — had our sites on for many years, since Cameron got started, I played my first year with Dad, he has some great memories. The classic memories of Dad, and Cameron was caddying and we were just shy of the green in two, close to the water’s edge, and his chipping was never his strong suit and he completely whiffed the chip. I don’t think Cameron could see all the way down the hill. Dad is smiling from above.

Cameron also knew he had a runway in this event. Cameron and Carson have been great partners. Cam and I have had each chances each year Cam had played, and come close. Some of those were frustrating not to play better on Sunday but man, this Sunday, I don’t know that it could have gone any better.

Q. 28 years in this event, you set multiple scoring records, finishing 33-under, dominating the margin of victory, were you watching the scoreboards while you were out there or just having fun?

CAMERON KUCHAR: Just having fun, really. I kind of knew on — there’s a scoreboard on the par 5, 14. We had a four-shotter, just keep it going. Checked again on 17, and this might be a record. See what we do on 18.

But I think this could be a record. I snatch a drive and he hits a great 7-iron to about a foot and a half. Then we find out right after they set the record by five shots. It’s pretty amazing after going out 15-under, 13-under, last year.

MATT KUCHAR: I think I only putted about three times. His chance to do solo birdie, he was dominating again today. I was glad to come through and help out a couple times today.

Q. And two eagles today.

CAMERON KUCHAR: 3, he hit a great hybrid a little draw around the tree 12 feet passed and rolled in the putt, which that early in the round —

MATT KUCHAR: It was certainly nice getting off to birdie, birdie starts. The Dalys, they just missed birdie on 2. You never know how your day is going to progress but when you see a couple putts go in early, it helps. Birdieing 1 and 2, it helps, but to see the eagle go in on 3, wow, this could be signs of a really good day to come.

Q. Are you going to be wearing those belts for the holiday with the family?

CAMERON KUCHAR: For sure.

MATT KUCHAR: I have got a terrible coat from The Heritage tournament, from the Hilton Head tournament, that comes out over Christmas. It’s the perfect Christmas color.

So it comes out once a year over Christmas. I look forward to bringing it out. And I certainly love to matching it with this. This is something I’ll never forget. I think we all have so much to be grateful for. To be part of this event, just to be included in this event, we’re certainly grateful for, to do this — I don’t know if you believe in karma, if you believe in fate, whatever you believe in, there’s something — something magical that does exist. I’m a believer in God that Dad is up above looking down, and that — what happened on 18, I could hardly stand up and hit a shot. For me to hit it to a foot, makes me think there’s something more out there (tearing up). Just miss — miss Pops.

Q. What would Pops say?

MATT KUCHAR: Certainly be so proud. I think back, and I think people have told me that as time goes on, you stop thinking of things you miss and thinking about things you’re grateful for and the good times you had. I certainly think back to some big fist pumps we and I out inside the ropes together and outside the ropes together. There would have been certainly some big fist pumps and certainly a lot of pride.

Q. I know it’s scramble and the numbers get skewed, but how good of a round of golf was that for you today?

CAMERON KUCHAR: That was amazing. I wasn’t keeping as much track today as I was yesterday but I probably made five or six solo birdies. Every now and then, I would let him know, all right, I made that one myself. But he also made a few solos and he’d come right back and he’d go, “That was all me right there.”

It was just fun just going back-and-forth like that.

MATT KUCHAR: His putting was incredible. If I can give a shoutout to Bettinardi. We were up in Chicago over Thanksgiving. Went into the Bettinardi factory. The guys took us back to the hive which is cool for kids into one-off putters and they let us pick out putters. Cam picked out — makes me think out to “The Natural,” little bat boy and goes and picks out a winner. And Cameron picked out a winner out of this group.

I’ve never seen him putt so good in my life.

And if I can sidebar; Bettinardis are having some family issues, if there’s anybody that can send some prayers their way, could use some.

But the putter he picked out is just amazing and he made it work today. Again for me to putt only three times in a round of golf is pretty crazy.

Q. And then again, score notwithstanding, what would your best round have been out on the AJGA or wherever?

CAMERON SMITH: My best round in my life?

Q. Performance. Not necessarily score?

MATT KUCHAR: He’s lit up some people at Gaza Ranch in the summer. There have been some really low scores. I’m glad I wasn’t in those groups because he would have dusted me pretty good.

So far, I think he’s clipped me three of times but I think there are plenty of rounds. Gaza Ranch has probably been some of the highlights with some really low rounds, some 64s out there at Gaza Ranch that did some damage for sure.

Q. Detailed oriented, what three holes did you put on?

CAMERON KUCHAR: 12 —

MATT KUCHAR: Putted on 2 and missed. Missed the one on 12.

CAMERON SMITH: 2, 12 and 8.

MATT KUCHAR: I was glad I stepped up and made one on 2. I felt like kept us going. Got some confidence. Hopefully did my job of freeing Cameron up. He was free and kept pouring in putts.

Q. Can you try to make sense of that? You guys played 36 holes and finished 33-under. I mean, that’s absurd, isn’t it?

CAMERON KUCHAR: Missed three.

MATT KUCHAR: It is absurd. It’s pretty magical, and again, you go back to those things, if you believe in karma or fate or something greater from above, there’s got to be something else going on.

I know that I feel confident in my game, certainly his game. I keep seeing him improve and improve and it’s so fun for me to see him continue to get better, and for him to put on a show when it really matters when cameras are out — I don’t think he’s been on a stage. He’s played in some big junior events but certainly when you get on a national scene like this, it’s unique and he rose to the occasion in a big way.

Q. Did your playing partners say anything to you, like “stop it”?

MATT KUCHAR: No, Dalys were so nice to play with. Any time we’ve been paired with them, they are always sweethearts of people. We always have a great time. They couldn’t be more encouraging.

I know always seems like you’re going to play with the Dalys and there’s going to be some sideshow stuff going on. Certainly they bring out a lot of fans. A lot of people come, they just love the Dalys but they could not be sweeter people. They are awfully nice to play with.

Q. What are perspectives that your dad gave you as a young athlete that you’ve tried to instill in Cameron?

CAMERON KUCHAR: Batting lefty in baseball is a big one?

MATT KUCHAR: I’d like to thing hard work. Our family shares a lot of stories from their childhoods and parents childhoods and Dad’s parents immigrated from the Ukraine to the United States. Hard workers were window washers. To see each generation get better, it was instilled, you provide for your kids to let them have a chance to have a better life than you did. But there’s hard work and you have a chance and you need to take advantage of the opportunity that you have.

For us, we’re quite fortunate just to be here in the U.S. to have that chance to have each generation become better and it’s fun to watch kids. I know Dad’s dad, just beamed with pride with what I did for a living, just loved seeing me play golf on the weekends, and they were funny. They could never understand why I would ever take a week off because they just said — they had nothing to watch when I took a week off.

But they were that type of people. They were just hard working — hard-working people, and to try to pass that whole mentality and that story on of, hey, you’ve got a chance, we’re going to give you the best chance. But it’s up to you to go make a better life.

It’s been fun. Certainly the beauty about sports is that you have to earn it. You have to put in the work. Nobody is blessed with being great just because they were born a great athlete. You either can play or you can’t. If you can play, you’ve earned that right and so it’s been great to see both my boys are doing well in their respective sport but it requires hard work, and they put the effort in, and it’s nice to see some results come.

Q. You’ve had some amazing victories and amazing weekends of competitive golf, where will this rank, these two rounds of golf that you’ve had?

MATT KUCHAR: Very special. These are the most unique Mike trophies. We’re certainly happy to display them proudly.

Most of my trophies come with a little photo of the family alongside the trophy ceremony, and you look back and it’s fun for me to see the kids through the ages from being tiny tots to where I could told both of them to where there’s no chance I could hold either one of them.

And now to have this shot with the family, it’s clearly missing — missing one (fighting back tears) but it’s special, very special.

Q. So where will the trophies go?

MATT KUCHAR: Got a neat area in the living room that kind of has some of my collection but it’s more of kids trophies, and it’s living that’s very much beside where the TV goes where we spend a lot of our time.

The kids have started putting in lots of their trophies, which is good fun. But these will be prominently displayed in that area, that’s for sure.

Q. Not going to Fort Worth?

MATT KUCHAR: Be interesting —

CAMERON SMITH: Probably leave it at the house but you never know. I think they would probably look the best together. So not going to steal his and take it to TCU.

MATT KUCHAR: We might have to make up Cameron some kind of rodeo champion belt buckle that signify — maybe a Willy Park logo on the belt buckle that will insignify the “2025 PNC Champions.” Keep these at home.

Source link

Rory, PLAYERS, Masters, and now the Amgen Irish Open. 2025 is the year that keeps on giving, isn’t it?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, it is. I said it out there on the green, but 2025 is going to go down as one of the best years of my career, if not the best, or at least the most memorable for a lot of different reasons.

Yeah, just an incredible week: The crowds, the atmosphere out there all week, but especially over the weekend and here in the last few groups.

Yeah, just such a thrill and such a pleasure to play in front of so many people and to feel that support and have them rooting you on down the closing stretch. I’m glad I rewarded all their support with a nice finish there on 18 and obviously getting the job done in the playoff.

As an Irish golfer growing up, one of the ones we always wanted to win is the Irish Open. I played my first Irish Open at Carton House down the road 20 years ago in 2005 with Harry on the bag, so it’s been a pretty cool journey since then. Yeah, just amazing.

Q. Well done, Rory. Can we just go back to the 72nd hole in regulation. You’re standing on the fairway and you know you need an eagle. What’s the thought process you go through? What were you talking to Harry about?

RORY McILROY: Just club selection, wind. I knew I had 202 yards downwind. I knew an 8-iron didn’t really have a chance to go as long. I felt like there would be adrenaline and if I hit it hard, I could get it all the way back there.

I caught it a tad skinny, just got a little bit late on it, but it was still a decent shot. It obviously left me that putt.

I guess the thing going through my head when I was looking at the putt was the putt I had at Royal County Down last year on 18 to try to get in a playoff with Rasmus, but it was an easy putt. It was uphill; it was right-to-left. I could be aggressive with it. I could have a go at it.

So I picked my line. I’d left a few putts short today. I just told myself, just get this one to the hole, give it a chance. It was nice to see it go right in the middle.

Q. Adding to your legacy, which you continue to do this year, just a few weeks before the Ryder Cup, you were talking earlier about looking for a W and bringing momentum into that. You pretty much did that. What does that mean to you?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think I said a win going into the Ryder Cup, I didn’t think was necessary, but it would have been very nice and it probably would have validated the fact my game was in good shape and I was happy with where everything is.

My game is in good shape. Even if I hadn’t have won here this week, I would have walked away being pretty encouraged about where everything is. Tee to green, I felt like I was good. It was nice to be in sort of the heat of battle and in contention and having to hit different shots under pressure, especially over those last few holes where there’s a little bit of trouble here and there and you have to manage your game a little bit.

I felt like I did most things well this week, and I’ve got another week next week to just keep on trying to sharpen the tools. Not that I don’t feel this way, but I’ve got another couple weeks to feel 100 percent ready for whatever I’m going to face at Bethpage.

Q. Sticking with putts, have you ever seen a putt like that roll in at the end of a round?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, when it hit the left side and just how slow it went round the hole, like it was in slow motion. I was like, no, it can’t. I felt like there was a lot of putts this week that looked like they could have went in and they didn’t. Thankfully, it just fell in there on the front side again.

I guess with the poa greens like this and they get a little bumpy and a little soft, they can roll a little bit. It’s hard. That was a 6-footer. You don’t want to hit those in too hard. You want to try to hit them in at a decent speed, and sometimes they can wiggle offline. It wiggled just enough to go in.

I got a little bit lucky, that putt on 13 and then the drive on 15, I felt like that was a big moment in the round as well.

Q. What is it about your putting specifically and to hole 30 feet, 28 feet on the last? And how you turned it around at the start of the season to have your best statistical putting season?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I finally found my range, around 30 feet, it looks like. Yeah, it’s been a great season putting-wise. I think I finished fourth in strokes gained putting on the PGA Tour, which is by far statistically the best I’ve ever done.

I’ve worked with Brad Faxon now for the last 6 1/2 years, and I learned a few things, I think. Working with Fax has really helped, I think, the style of putter that I’ve gone, the Spider, the mallet-style putter definitely helps me in some of the strokes with the way I do, it helps me be a little more consistent.

Then when I do work with Fax, we keep it very, very simple. There’s really only a couple of thoughts that — sometimes he’ll come over to The Bear’s Club or whatever, and it’s supposed to be for a putting lesson and we don’t even hit any putts. We’ll talk about putting. We’ll grab a coffee, talk about mindset, we’ll talk about routine, and that will be it.

Sometimes I don’t even need to go and hit a putt. It’s just talking about it and just being in the right mindset. Like one of the best putts that I felt like I held today was the second putt on the second playoff hole, little slider, four feet left-to-right. That was a nice solid stroke, especially to get the ball in just before he hit his putt.

So even just little things like that, under a little bit of pressure, being able to stick to your routine, making good strokes, I have been pleased with that part of my game this year.

Q. So you’re going back in your thoughts to what you’re working with Brad in big moments and you have to hole the putts?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, you’re just thinking your process. For me it’s about keeping my right arm soft. It’s about keeping the putter level through impact and picking my spot a couple feet in front of me, lining up to that.

Yeah, I think that’s the nice thing, when you get under pressure and your routine is dialed in, it sort of makes everything a little bit better and makes everything a bit easier.

Q. You’ve been in a lot of playoffs. You lost your first couple but you’ve won the last six, including your three titles this year against J.J., Justin, and Joakim. The playoffs have been kind to you.

RORY McILROY: They have. Yeah, I started my career with a couple of losses in playoffs, three losses, I think: Switzerland, Hong Kong, and the Honda Classic, but after that it’s been much better.

I feel like playoffs in golf are a bit like tie breaks in tennis. It’s really about who blinks first. It’s almost about just being a little bit patient. On that 18th hole, we both played pretty safe the first two times. Then Joakim was probably being a little more aggressive with his second shot on the third go round and just pulled it slightly and hits it in the water.

So it’s sort of like I’ve watched a lot of tennis this week because of the US Open, and if you can just hold your serve, it really is about that. Thankfully, I did enough to get over the line.

Same thing at the Masters, same thing at THE PLAYERS. Playoffs, I feel like I’m a lot more comfortable in them. I feel like I’ve got a good strategy for them is probably the big thing.

Q. You mentioned on TV that when you holed the eagle putt on 18, it was one of the coolest moments on the golf course. How does it rank up there with the achievements you achieved on the golf course over your career?

RORY McILROY: It’s right up there. Just that scene on 18, hitting your second shot into the green, and you’ve got the grandstand and all the crowd on the right, but then half of the first fairway is full as well. It’s just absolutely incredible seeing it.

You always want to have the putt on the last green to win or do something big, and that was definitely one of them. I’ll remember that for a long time.

Q. Rory, were you watching the leaderboard throughout the round? Did you know exactly where you stood at all times?

RORY McILROY: I tried not to look at it on the front nine, and then I sort of when we were going into the back nine, I wanted to maybe have a little bit of an idea of what was going on. I birdied the 9th hole to get to like 14-under at that point.

I’m trying to think of the first leaderboard I saw. Maybe on 12? I saw I was tied for the lead maybe at that point. So the sand save on 12 was big.

Yeah, I had an idea the last sort of five or six holes, but I think up until that point, it really doesn’t do me any good to look at them because I feel then it influences my play, and it shouldn’t influence how you play coming down the last few holes. I felt like I did a good job of that.

Q. Needed to get off to a fast start, and obviously a bogey at the 1st. Is that like — is it head down at the time, the opposite of a fast start?

RORY McILROY: I felt like I hit two good shots into the 1st. We teed off in that little squall, like the conditions weren’t great starting off. I just missed the green to the right. It was a pretty simple chip shot, but because of the moisture on the ground, if just came off hot off the club, and that took me by surprise. I hit that chip shot six or seven feet high and I missed coming back.

I guess the start of the round isn’t that easy. You’ve got some chances, and you have a chance on four of the par-5s. But to bounce back straight away, the birdie on 2 was nice and then the birdie on 4 and 5, from 1-over through one to 2-under through five was nice.

Q. Rory, you said at The Open, I think it might have been on Saturday, that Scottie looks inevitable. Do you feel a bit inevitable yourself, like you’re bulletproof with the way that you’ve taken the chances that you’ve had this year and been able to put them away?

RORY McILROY: I think the more and more you get yourself in these positions, the more comfortable you are. I’m not always in a situation like we had on the back nine where there’s three or four of us in with a chance. I always feel like I always put myself in those positions and be able to find a way to get it done.

It doesn’t always work out that way, but as I said, the more you get yourself in those positions, the more comfortable you feel. I think the more experience you have, the more you figure out what is going to be enough to get the job done. I’ve played over 400 professional tournaments, and I’d like to think I’ve been in contention in at least 25 percent of them, if not more.

So I’ve had an ability to try to win big golf tournaments, and I sort of feel like I’ve got the experience to know what to do and when to press and when to be conservative. It’s just finding that balance.

Source link