© Getty Images Sport – Kevin C. Cox / Staff
Collin Morikawa returns, almost two years after his last victory, to raise his arms to the sky for a title on the professional circuit. He does it in Japan, at the Zozo Championship 2023, of which he is the winner with a score of -14 (64 73 66 63).
Thus, his race to the top of the world rankings starts again from Chiba prefecture: for the moment he has regained enough to be, from tomorrow, in 13th place. His last round today was memorable, a -7 with only birdies embellished by the last one, right at the 18th, as a definitive seal.
Collin Morikawa, results
Nothing to do for his opponents, starting with Eric Cole and Beau Hossler, who stopped at par and thus found themselves enormously distant, at -8. Both Robby Shelton and the first of the Japanese, Ryo Ishikawa, are fourth at -7.
Of note is the excellent tournament of the hosts in general, with sixth place at -4 by Kensei Hirata and Ryo Hisatsune alongside J.J. Spaun and the Australian Min Woo Lee. Above all for Hirata this is the culmination of an excellent season on the Japanese tour, in which he achieved two victories and several other notable results.
Finally, among the tenths, the Argentinian Emiliano Grillo and Justin Suh. For the former number one in the amateur world ranking (but never reached the same heights as a pro) a bad day from +4 to -5: he was the leader going into Sunday.
Both South Korean Sungjae Im and Australian Cam Davis remain just outside the top ten, both in 12th place at -4. Born in Los Angeles to Debbie and Blaine Morikawa, of Chinese and Japanese origins respectively, he began playing golf at the age of 5.[1] He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he practiced the sport from 2015 to 2019 before graduating in business administration.
In December 2021, Morikawa got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Katherine Zhu. They got married on November 26, 2022. He turned professional in 2019 by taking part in the Canadian Open, where he placed 14th. In August 2020 he won the PGA Championship at his first attempt, then repeating his success in July 2021 by winning the British Open, again as a rookie.
This made him the first golfer in history to win two majors in his first appearance. The Californian also becomes the seventh golfer since 1900 to win the Open on debut – after Jock Hutchison (1921), Denny Shute (1933), Ben Hogan (1953), Tony Lema (1964), Tom Watson (1975) and Ben Curtis (2003)– as well as setting the new record for strokes on the course at Royal St.
George’s with 265 (the previous record of 267, set in 1993, was set by Greg Norman). In 2021 he took part in the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo, finishing third after the scheduled fourth rounds, but tied with nine other golfers. However, in the playoffs he was overtaken by Pan Cheng-tsung, finishing in fourth place.
