Tokyo Olympics 2020: Open champion Collin Morikawa says he learnt from PGA slump

Newly crowned Open champion Collin Morikawa believes he had managed to refocus after the high of his second major win — and that would put him in good stead as he goes for Olympic gold this week.

Morikawa stormed to victory on his Open debut at Royal St George’s just under two weeks ago, as he had done in his maiden PGA Championship last year.

Morikawa said after his first major win in August 2020 he just expected to turn up and play well but missed the cut at his next event, the Northern Trust Championship.

He would not be making the same mistake going into this week’s Tokyo 2020 event at the Kasumigaseki Country Club which begins Thursday.

“It doesn’t just flow over to the next day and I’m automatically going to start making birdies,” said Morikawa. “Last time, after I won the PGA, I just figured, yeah, I’ll kind of walk into play-offs. I think I learnt that lesson.

“So hopefully I’ve kind of just reassessed myself, kind of taken a step back, and realised what I did was great, but we’ve got so much more left of the season. I think overall I’ve done a better job than already what I did at the PGA, so hopefully we’re taking the right steps to finishing off the season.”

Morikawa admitted to some partying after his Open success. “I mean, there was maybe like two days of celebrating when I got home and then after that it was kind of just relax,” he said. “It’s like you go from the Open Championship, you go home for four days and then we’re all on a flight Saturday morning. So the turnaround time was a lot quicker than you would kind of want or expect and but that’s just what we do.”