Cal Golf: Borrowing From Rivals, Collin Morikawa Calls Himself a `Silent Hunter'

The world's third-ranked player believes his game can benefit from watching others.

Like many athletes, Collin Morikawa is open to borrowing from the games of friends and rivals to improve his golf aptitude.

But the former Cal star admits he does it on the sly.

“I’m kind of a silent hunter,” Morikawa told the British golf website Bunkered.

Morikawa, who will pursue his second PGA Championship title in three years this week at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, doesn’t directly seek advice on technique or strategy from other golfers.

Instead, he merely keeps his eyes open.

“I don’t really go and ask and chirp and bother these guys. I just watch from afar which sounds really creepy when I say it,” he said. “But that’s what I do.”

Creepy?

His words, not ours. Sounds smart to us.

Morikawa, ranked No. 3 in the world, believes all aspects of his game can benefit from observing other top golfers. That includes a new resident in his hometown, Xander Schauffele, who carries a No. 10 world ranking.

“Xander Schauffele has moved out to Vegas and we’ve played a bunch together. You just kind of watch and grasp how other people do it,” Morikawa explained. “It doesn’t have to be Xander. There’s a whole bunch of guys.

“When we play on team events like the Ryder Cup you just watch. There’s so much knowledge there that when you sit back and actually listen, you can gain so much and learn so much about what they do and what makes them so great.”

Morikawa, considered to have one of the elite iron games on the PGA Tour, isn’t looking to revamp his game. But the 25-year-old believes there is always room to fold new ideas into his approach.

“At the end of the day there’s no way for me to copy what they do,” he said. “We have completely different feels and what they tell me may not be exactly what I feel, so it’s just about piecing a lot of different things together and making yourself think in a different way.”

Morikawa has included two major titles — the 2020 PGA and 2021 British Open — among his five career victories. He has yet to win this season, but has six top-10 finishes including a fifth-place effort at the Masters last month.

He has taken the past two weeks off from tournament play in order to prepare for the PGA, which begins Thursday.

Cover photo of Collin Morikawa during a practice round this week at the PGA by Orlando Ramirez, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo