{"id":474862,"date":"2026-02-18T00:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/474862\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T00:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:59:11","slug":"collin-morikawa-explains-how-stolen-putter-helped-end-winless-drought-at-pebble-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/474862\/","title":{"rendered":"Collin Morikawa Explains How Stolen Putter Helped End Winless Drought at Pebble Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collin Morikawa got by with a little help from his friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, the 29-year-old, who won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Sunday <\/a>for his first victory since 2023, was playing a casual round with two-time PGA Tour winner Kurt Kitayama, his brother and caddie and Min Woo Lee, who ironically finished runner-up to Morikawa at Pebble.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And Morikawa, who finished last season near the bottom on Tour in strokes-gained putting, took notice of Daniel Kitayama\u2019s TaylorMade Spider Tour X putter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Oh, let me try it,\u2019\u201d Morikawa said after his win at Pebble. \u201cI tried it on maybe the 13th hole. Felt great. I was like, I jokingly said, \u2018I might have to take this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, he did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the next two days, I actually didn\u2019t touch a club other than my putter, or his putter,\u201d Morikawa said. \u201cThat\u2019s all I was doing in the hotel room. Like I didn\u2019t hit balls, I didn\u2019t do anything, just putting in the hotel room, putting, putting, putting. Obviously, that didn\u2019t help for Phoenix [where he finished T54].\u201d<\/p>\n

Morikawa, one of the sport\u2019s premier iron players, has always been spotty on the greens. He\u2019s tried out several flatsticks throughout his career and last year began testing mallets. In the season-opener, the Sony Open in Hawaii, Morikawa missed the cut using Spider ZT Black, which Nelly Korda used in her victory<\/a> two weeks ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, thanks to Kitayama, it appears he\u2019s found one he\u2019s comfortable with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of settling nice to where it allows it to flow a little bit but it doesn\u2019t have as much toe hang as the neck assumes just because of the mallet look,\u201d Morikawa said after his second-round 62. \u201cSo it\u2019s doing what I want. Hopefully, we can start them online tomorrow and see if they drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-time major champion admits he\u2019ll likely be unsettled on a putter for the rest of his career. But, after a win, it seems he\u2019s not making a change anytime soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know if [Kitayama\u2019s] going to want it back,\u201d said Morikawa, who lost 0.050 strokes on Pebble\u2019s greens, ranked 44th in the field. \u201cHe looked at it again this week. I think he\u2019s trying to replicate it with maybe a different club or whatever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s mine now.\u201d<\/p>\n

More Golf from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collin Morikawa got by with a little help from his friend.\u00a0 Two weeks ago, the 29-year-old, who won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-474862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}