It’s that weird time of year where you have little idea which stars are playing which events — and on which continent. For example, Jon Rahm, Patrick Reed, Shane Lowry and Sergio Garcia are playing in Spain. Next week, Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland plus their Ryder captain Luke Donald will be in India.
But this week? We’ve got Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa in Japan.
It’s Baycurrent Classic week on the PGA Tour, which may not mean much to you but it means plenty to them. Morikawa’s father is a Japanese-American. Schauffele’s mother grew up in Japan. His dad did plenty of business there over the years. We learned plenty about what Japan means to these two during the 2020 Olympics, when Morikawa and Schauffele represented Team USA. Schauffele repped the red, white, and blue so well he took Gold home with him. Morikawa lost in a 7-for-1 playoff for Bronze, but made his mark on Japan two years later, winning the Zozo Championship.
In Elite Golfer Years, that was all a very long time ago. Morikawa hasn’t won an official tournament since (though in an important footnote he did shoot the lowest score at the 2024 Tour Championship). Schauffele bagged two majors last summer, and has been trying (in vain, thus far) to live up to that standard since battling an injury this time last year.
Trying, perhaps like Morikawa, a bit too hard.
On Tuesday night, I wondered about the parallel tracks Schauffele and Morikawa seemed to be moving on recently. I sat in my Chicago apartment, scrolling Instagram just enough to be reminded of the time change. It was morning time in Yokohama, Japan, and a press operations manager for the PGA Tour asked if I had any pressing questions for those two golfers. They were about to conduct press conferences one after the other, and press conferences are no good without questions.
Both golfers struggled in 2025. By my metric, sure. But by theirs, too. You hear it in their voices and see it in their practice sessions. Now, though, their eyes are on January in the same way most Tour pros look to that month of annual new beginnings. The fall is the time to figure stuff out for January so that January and February can get you ready for April. I wanted to know, now that the Ryder Cup had come and gone, what one thing they were going to try and squeeze out of the fall, starting with this week in Japan.
Luckily for me, the press manager was a willing coordinator.
“I think trying to gain a little bit of confidence would be the biggest thing,” Schauffele said. “I think it was a tricky year with injury and sort of lack of starts early on. Gaining some confidence, that would probably be the No. 1 thing. Gaining a little bit going into the new year and trying to get back into good form.”
It would be okay to roll your eyes at the simplicity or invulnerable feeling of that quote, but it checks out. Schauffele’s game hasn’t been bad at all this year. At the Ryder Cup, it was quite good. It’s just that his floor dropped a little, just as his ceiling dropped, too. He got a late start to his season and found himself grinding on the range, spurning doctor’s guidance and trying to just figure it out. If it were that easy, he would have figured it out by now. There’s been not shortage of trying. But throughout the Tour season, he’d find himself shooting 72 once per tournament at courses where the 2024 version of Xander was carding 68, easy.
It looks like a bunch of T8 to T28 finishes, but zero top 5s. Over time, that can dent a man’s confidence. Even a two-time major champion who has admitted as much to his team. So that answer was a great one. And the last one he gave before heading out to practice.
A few minutes later, Morikawa was seated in the same chair, answering the same question.
“I would say there’s two [things, not one,]” Morikawa said. “I would say one would be putting, it’s an obvious inconsistency in my game. Just try to figure out how to roll a couple more putts in, have a little bit more speed.
“Two would be just getting my body right so I can hit my cuts again. Numbers-wise it looks fine, but comfort level I want to step up and hit approach shots and know where it’s going to be going. I’m going to have some time off, which will be nice, and hopefully put that time to use.”
You might just be reading that quote in its black-and-white text version on your phone, but just know — that is Collin Morikawa as his truest self. That’s how he talks, thinks, exists. The numbers on his approach play look fine, but he wants to play Collin Golf. He’s even used those two words as a common phrase over and over. Collin Golf is hitting 5- to 10-yard cuts everywhere and being so good at it that you are supremely confident where they are starting and where they are landing.
It was another fantastically honest answer and perfectly visual for anyone sitting around at home. Morikawa is focused on something a bit more literal — holing more putts and perfecting those Collin Cuts — while Schauffele is focused on something a lot more figurative — just feeling good about things. Both great ideas for them to stew over the next three months. We’ll be there in January to see how well they’ve solved it.
