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10 Facts About Collin Morikawa
Transcript
00:00The term rising star might be a bit patronising for a golfer of Colin Morikawa's ability.
00:06A double major winner by the time he was just 25 years old, golf's rising star has arguably
00:12already risen and will no doubt continue to ascend to the very, very top through his career.
00:17But still a fresh face on tour, let's get to know more about one of the best ball strikers
00:22currently on tour.
00:25The son of Debbie and Pauline Morikawa, Colin was born in Los Angeles, California and is
00:31of Chinese-Japanese descent. Much of his father's side of the family are from Hawaii and he
00:37still has many relatives who live there today. Despite having no living relatives currently
00:42in Japan, he recently visited the country for the very first time. He said,
00:47There was an instant connection and that was something I had never felt. It felt amazing.
00:52I felt that love and I felt that this is where my heritage and my life had started.
00:57Morikawa had an unbelievably decorated amateur career. He played his collegiate golf at the
01:02University of California in Berkeley from 2015 to 2019, winning five times, including
01:09the 2019 Pac-12 Championship. Aside from these pretty historic collegiate wins, he won the
01:15Western Junior, Trans-Mississippi Amateur, Sunnyhana Amateur and Northeast Amateur Championships
01:22during his career. Finally, all before he turned pro, he played on the winning Arnold
01:26Palmer Cup team in 2017 and 2018 and was also on the winning Walker Cup team in 2017. Understandably,
01:34with this much success, Morikawa was ranked the number one amateur in the world in May
01:392018. He then turned professional in 2019 at the RBC Canadian Open. He finished tied
01:47on 14th on debut and followed that up with a tie for second place at the 3M Open and
01:52then a tie for fourth place at the John Deere Classic. With that finish, he secured his
01:57PGA Tour card for the following season after just three events on tour. Not content with
02:03that though, Morikawa then won his first PGA Tour event at the Barracuda Championship just
02:08a few months later. Safe to say, he's not looked back from there. Speaking of beginnings
02:13Colin Morikawa had one of the most decorated starts to a PGA Tour career in history. He
02:18did this by making 22 consecutive cuts. That record is only bettered by one Tiger Woods,
02:23who did it 25 times. Morikawa became the first American to win the Race to Dubai on the then
02:30European Tour. He won the yearly Order of Merit thanks to his win at the 2021 Open Championship,
02:36as well as winning the DP World Tour Championship right at the end of the season. At the time of
02:42recording, Morikawa has won two of golf's majors and he won them both on his debut appearance. In
02:482020, he won the PGA Championship at Harding Park in California and then in 2021, he won the Open
02:55Championship at Royal St. George's. By winning these two majors on debut, he became the first
03:00male golfer to achieve that feat. He is currently engaged to his long-term partner, Katherine Zhu.
03:05The pair met in 2017 while both at college and Zhu herself played collegiate golf at Pepperdine
03:11University in Los Angeles. Morikawa is a big sports fan outside of golf, closely following
03:17both baseball and basketball. Being a local to California and LA, his baseball team is the LA
03:23Dodgers while he supports the LA Lakers in basketball. The course he grew up playing on
03:28is called Chevy Chase Country Club, also in California. It's a truly fascinating little
03:33golf course which has just nine holes with 10 different greens and 36 different tees. The
03:40course didn't have a driving range so Morikawa did all of his practice out on the course, making
03:44up his own holes on the very unique layout. And finally, did you know that Colin Morikawa loves
03:50cereal? Yes, he loves cereal so much that he has the names of his favorite cereal brands printed on
03:57his wedges. So if you take a look at the back of his 56 degree wedge, he currently has printed on
04:03it Frosted Flakes, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Captain Crunch and Cocoa Puff. However, it is worth noting
04:10that he puts the milk in before he puts the cereal in, which obviously isn't conventional. This is
04:15something which fellow tour pro Justin Thomas has given him plenty of stick for online. So there you
04:23have it, 10 interesting facts you now know about Colin Morikawa. With two majors already under his
04:29belt, do you think he'll win all four by the end of his career? To join the discussion and to find
04:35more facts about your favorite players, you can visit the tour section on the Golf Monthly website.