{"id":531192,"date":"2026-03-18T17:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/531192\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T17:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:10:14","slug":"collin-morikawa-back-expects-to-be-at-full-strength-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/531192\/","title":{"rendered":"Collin Morikawa (back) expects to be at full strength soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mar 17, 2026, 07:09 PM ET<\/p>\n

Collin Morikawa<\/a>, a surprise withdrawal during the Players Championship last week, said his back is improving and expects to be at full strength soon, welcomed news for the world No. 6 with the Masters less than a month away.<\/p>\n

The two-time major winner was forced to exit the Players after playing just one hole in his opening round. He took a full-speed practice swing on the 11th tee, backed off and then withdrew, later saying his exit was “just the worst thing in the world.”<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

According to ESPN’s Marty Smith, Morikawa said his back is improving every day and the goal now is to avoid any issues going forward.<\/p>\n

“My team and I are running a series of tests to make sure we protect the area and continuously get stronger to make sure things like this never happen again,” Morikawa said, according to Smith.<\/p>\n

Smith shared Morikawa’s comments during the TGL semifinals between Atlanta and Los Angeles on Tuesday night. Morikawa is part of the L.A. team but was unable to play.<\/p>\n

Morikawa was considered a favorite to win the Players thanks to some strong form to start 2026, including three top-10 finishes and a victory at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.<\/p>\n

He had some lingering back issues in 2021 at the Tokyo Olympics and in 2023, forcing him to withdraw from the Memorial tournament that year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mar 17, 2026, 07:09 PM ET Collin Morikawa, a surprise withdrawal during the Players Championship last week, said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-531192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531192","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=531192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}