Don’t call it a funk: Collin Morikawa insists recent blips are no big worry heading into WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

AUSTIN, Texas — We should all be so lucky to have bumps in the road as smooth as the ones Collin Morikawa has recently traversed.

Yes, the five-time PGA Tour winner has slipped a little in recent weeks, but from what? The University of California star opened the 2021-22 PGA Tour season by placing in the top seven in the first five events he played, including a pair of runner-up finishes at the CJ Cup and the Genesis Invitational. So the bar was high, to say the least.

But Morikawa did miss the cut at the Players Championship, something he’s only done seven times as a PGA Tour pro, and struggled to a T-68 at the Valspar Championship last week.

So what’s created this mini-funk of sorts, one that’s seen him slip from the top of the last two leaderboards?

“You put it as a funk; I put it as a learning experience,” Morikawa said Tuesday in advance of this week’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club. “What’s weird about the past couple weeks from Players and Valspar is that I felt some of the best golf I had felt warming up and getting ready for the tournament. But then there are just like little pieces that when I actually tee it up on Thursday that I’m missing from when I compare it to a really good round or a really good tournament.

“It’s so frustrating because I feel like I can hit all those shots but then they’re just not put together.”

Morikawa mentioned that his putter has let him down a bit in recent weeks, but he’s certainly not overly concerned about overhauling anything. In fact, he thinks this week’s match-play format might allow him to get more aggressive with the putter.

But either way, don’t call it a funk. He’s still the second-ranked player in the world, and enters this event as the second seed.

“I wouldn’t say it’s like a little funk. For me, it’s just making sure I wake up and realize, okay, I can’t take anything for granted out here,” he said. “I have done that in the past, and I hate myself for doing that, but sometimes — this is a little different. This is just not thinking through some shots, not going through the full process of actually doing my due diligence when I’m over the shot.

“In a format like this, I can’t get lazy just because it’s match play. If I miss that putt, that doesn’t mean I just am carefree. I want to go out there and give it all I got and see what happens.”

Morikawa would like to improve on last year’s performance at the event when he was knocked out during the group stage. His feelings when he left Austin last year, now those could be considered a funk.

“It was pretty sad. It was pretty sad. I felt like my game was — playing pretty well. At Players, I didn’t play great, I think a couple weeks before this. And just game still felt fine, showed up, practice rounds were good, and then you get your seed, and I think I went 0-2-1,” Morikawa said. “It’s defeating, but it happens. That’s what match play is, right? You have to be prepared to beat your guy every single day, and I just was giving away way too many mistakes, and in match play you just can’t do that.

“I think the hard thing is you can’t worry about anyone else out there. You can’t worry about, oh, this guy might have shot even and won his match and then I shot 5-under and I lost. All you have is control over what you’re doing and who you’re playing.”