Collin Morikawa within the last spherical of the Masters on Sunday.
getty pictures
AUGUSTA, Ga. — “Greed,” financier Gordon Gekko famously declared within the 1987 movie Wall Road, “is sweet. Greed is true, greed works.”
Cleary Gekko by no means performed Augusta National on Masters Sunday, as a result of in line with one Masters contender, that specific vice is, actually, not good.
It’s dangerous. Actual dangerous.
Collin Morikawa began the ultimate spherical of this 88th Masters in an enviable spot. At six underneath, he was only one again of chief Scottie Scheffler and coming off a four-birdie third-round 69 through which he exhibited various flashes of his former major-winning self: flagged irons, regular brief sport, no-sweat pars.
On Sunday, taking part in within the last pairing with Scheffler, Morikawa picked up the place he’d left off within the third spherical, opening with seven straight pars and drawing him even with Scheffler, who had performed the identical stretch in a single over. Issues acquired higher nonetheless on the par-5 eighth, the place Morikawa made his first birdie of the day.
Then got here the 460-yard par-4 ninth.
After flaring his tee shot into the pines, Morikawa performed a low runner as much as the inexperienced that caught the cavernous front-left bunker. Together with his first try from the sand, Morikawa acquired too cute. The ball caught the lip and got here again to his ft. One other sand shot and two putts later, he had made a double-bogey 6.
Morikawa settled himself with a par at 10 however then got here undone once more on the fearsome par-4 eleventh, the place so many Masters desires have gone to die. Now at 5 underneath, he hit cut up the golf green along with his tee shot, leaving himself 202 yards to a inexperienced guarded by a pond to the left. Even when you didn’t watch the printed, you recognize the place that is going. Splash. “Simply tried to hit too excellent of a shot,” he would say later. “A drop, a chip and one other two-putt later and Morikawa had one other double on his card.
4 dropped photographs in three holes? That’s no option to win a green jacket.
The wrongdoer?
“I acquired grasping,” Morikawa mentioned after his spherical. “If you’re taking part in actually good, you don’t get grasping, and I acquired grasping on 9, I acquired grasping on 11. I wasn’t urgent, I simply was making an attempt to hit it just a little bit too shut, and greed can get the perfect of us.”
After the mess at 11, Morikawa made birdies on each back-nine par-5s, 13 and 15, earlier than closing with a bogey at 18 to drop again to 2 over for his spherical and 4 underneath for the week, seven again of Scheffler in a tie for third with Tommy Fleetwood and Max Homa. It was Morikawa’s highest main end since his win on the 2022 Open Championship.
Till this week, Morikawa’s 2024 had been underwhelming. Since his T5 within the limited-field, season-opening Sentry, he had two top-20s but in addition two missed cuts in six begins.
“This has been a bizarre 12 months, however I noticed plenty of good this week,” Morikawa mentioned. “In the present day was the primary day the place I actually simply mentally form of gave a pair away. Generally it occurs.”
It, on this case, was greed, and, with all respect to Mr. Gekko, it was no good in any respect.
