Top 50 Cal Pros: No. 13 - Collin Morikawa, Two-Time Major Winner

We are counting down Cal’s top 50 athletes based on their careers as post-collegiate professionals. Their performance as Golden Bears is not factored into the rankings.

13. COLLIN MORIKAWA

Years at Cal: 2015 to 2019

Sport: Golf

Age: 28

Hometown: Los Angeles

Collin Morikawa | Photo by Gary A. Vasquez

Why we ranked him here: Morikawa turned pro in 2019 and during his first full season in 2020 won the PGA Championship in front of no spectators during COVID at Harding Park in San Francisco. A year later, before 32,000 fans at at Royal St. George’s at Sandwich, England, he posted four rounds in the 60s and fired a bogey-free, final-round 66 to capture the 149th (British) Open Championship, making him the first player to win two different majors on his first try. At 24 years old, he became just the eighth player to win two majors before turning 25. He and Tiger Woods are the only players to prevail at the PGA and The Open by that age. Morikawa began his career by making 22 consecutive cuts, second only to Woods’ record of 25. He has won a total of six tournaments since turning pro and was ranked No. 2 in the world in eight different weeks in 2022. He has been a tournament runner-up 11 times, has 29 top-5 finishes and 45 in the top-10. Morikawa hasn’t won since October 2023 but he remains No. 5 in the world rankings and his career earnings have now eclipsed $41 million. He has played for the U.S. Ryder Cup team twice (winning in 2021, when he was 3-0-1 and scored the decisive point) and the Presidents Cup twice (winning both, in 2022 and ’24). He finished fourth at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after losing a tiebreaker for the bronze medal, and was 24th at the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Collin Morikawa at Cal | Photo by Marcus Edwards

At Cal: Morikawa won five tournaments with the Bears, including the 2019 Pac-12 championship in his final season when he was Pac-12 Player of the Year before turning pro. In May 2018, he spent three weeks as the world’s top-ranked amateur. Morikawa earned a spot on the All-Nicklaus Team three years in a row (2017-18-19), the only Cal golfer to do so more than once. He was named to the Golden Coaches of America Association All-America team four times — three times on the first team and on the third team as a freshman. He tied for 10th at the NCAA championships as a freshman and tied for eighth as a senior, the program’s most recent top-10 finish. He also was a GCAA All-America Scholar in 2018 and 19 and was a GCAA All-American four times — three times on the first team. He was first-team All-Pac-12 four years in a row.

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