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While The Summit Club is a brand new course to many in the
78-player field, it happens to be Morikawa's home course. The
Las Vegas resident acknowledged he heads out to Summit on his
off weeks just to "play however many holes." His low 18-hole
round at the course is a 62.
The world's No. 3-ranked player last teed it up in a stroke play
event when he finished 28th at the Tour Championship. That came
on the heels of a missed cut at The Northern Trust Open and a
tie for 63rd at the BMW Championship as Morikawa tried to play
his way through a back injury.
He then took three weeks off before the Ryder Cup. The rest paid
dividends as Morikawa went 3-0-1 in Team USA's dominating
victory over Team Europe at Whistling Straits. Morikawa took
another two weeks off, and now he is set to kick off his "Fall
Swing" at The Summit Club.
He first downplayed the notion of a home-course advantage,
pointing out that professional golfers regularly play new
courses and spend the days ahead of an event figuring out a game
plan. But Morikawa also used the word "comfort" numerous times
in talking about the course Tuesday.
"There's a sense of comfort, right?" he said. "Like I said, I go
out on my off weeks and I just tee it up out here, I play
however many holes, so I'm comfortable with a lot of tee shots,
I'm comfortable with the approaches, I know where the greens
break, I know where to miss the shots, so hopefully we can
execute the shots this week.
"But there's just a sense of comfort. There's not that sense of
urgency to figure out the golf course per se today on Tuesday or
(Wednesday) during the pro-am. I'm ready."
Interestingly, Morikawa offers decent odds at +1600 at
DraftKings this week. That's the same as Rory McIlroy, who is
teeing it up for the first time since a disappointing Ryder Cup
showing.
The pre-tournament favorite is Morikawa's Ryder Cup partner,
Dustin Johnson (+1000). Justin Thomas, a two-time CJ Cup
champion in South Korea, is being offered at +1200 along with
Xander Schauffele.
Before injuring his back, Morikawa won The Open Championship and
tied for fourth at the Olympics. Healthy again, he's looking to
kick-start this season on a strong note coming off an excellent
performance at Whistling Straits.
Morikawa already has two major titles under his belt, which he
said has changed his goals a bit. He declined to share his
updated list, but he counted staying healthy among them as he
has up-ramped his workout regimen.
"I'm going to go out and try and just be as prepped as I can
come Thursday," he said. "Summit's obviously a beautiful course.
I think there's going to be quite a few birdies out here, but
there's nothing wrong with that, and hopefully we can make a few
more than everyone else."
--Field Level Media
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