KAPALUA, Hawaii – Collin Morikawa was in the pole position entering Sunday’s finale of the Tournament of Champions (which now allows players who haven’t won, but made it to the Tour Championship) at Kapalua’s Plantation course, but Jon Rahm had other plans.
Rahm began the final round trailing by seven, but was a whopping nine back after he bogeyed the first and Morikawa birdied the opener – but shot a 5-under 31 on the inward side, while Morikawa floundered – coming in with a backside 39 to that included 3 straight bogeys, to lose by two. Rahm ran down most of Morikawa’s lead by gaining six-shots on the final seven holes. “Bit of a crazy day, I’m not gonna lie. I’m like, ‘We’re going to need a small miracle.’ After bogeying 1, I was going to need somewhat of a larger miracle.”
The larger miracle came from Morikawa, after playing flawless golf for three days, the putts weren’t falling and when he bogeyed holes 14 thru 16, it all fell apart for the former Cal Bear standout.
Rahm birdied three in a row starting with the 12th, then he eagled the par-5 15th and was tied for the lead. When he birdied the par-5 18th he had a three shot cushion over Morikawa who was two groups behind him. Game Over.
Afterward Morikawa talked about the disappointment, “I don’t know. It sucks. You work so hard, and you give yourself these opportunities and just bad timing on bad shots and kind of added up really quickly. Don’t know what I’m going to learn from this week, but it just didn’t seem like it was that far off. It really wasn’t.”
The win was Jon Rahm’s third worldwide victory in his last four starts (two on the DP World Tour). He is now fourth in the FedEx Cup and is fourth in the Official World Golf Ranking.
“I feel like since August I’ve been the best player in the world,” he said.
