As the final group made the turn to the back nine, Collin Morikawa held a three-shot advantage and looked destined to win on the PGA Tour for the first time since October 2023.
Up to that point, he had played near-flawless golf, relying heavily on his iron play to pluck his way around Bay Hill, perhaps the most challenging course that PGA Tour pros will play all year. Morikawa sat at 11-under par on the 10th tee, but then, on the first hole on the back nine, he missed the fairway by a couple of feet. His ball settled into a brutal lie. He then hacked his second shot into the front greenside bunker, which brought bogey into play. Morikawa then failed to get up-and-down to save par, dropping back to 10-under, where he started the day.
The former California Golden Bear then picked up that dropped shot at the par-5 12th, which proved to be his final birdie of the round. Morikawa still held a three-shot lead at that juncture, but he began to lose momentum on the par-3 14th hole.
Morikawa missed the green short and faced a delicate chip-shot from an unfavorable lie in the fairway. Like the 10th, he could not save his par.
Meanwhile, his playing partner, Russell Henley, fired a dart into the 14th green and drained a 10-footer for birdie to cut into the deficit. It was a two-shot swing, and suddenly, Morikawa felt all the pressure for the first time all day.
After both players made par on the challenging 15th hole, the tournament completely flipped on the par-5 16th hole, the easiest hole on the course. Morikawa missed the fairway and found the bunker off the tee. He could only muster a par, a disappointing score considering this hole yielded 26 birdies and six eagles on Sunday.
And one of those eagles came from Henley, who chipped-in for a three from off the green to grab the lead. Like that, Morikawa’s three shot lead evaporated and Henley ultimately held on to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational by a stroke over the two-time major winner.
Morikawa has played terrific golf for the past year, ever since his top-three finish at Augusta National last April. But even then, Morikawa admitted that “greed” cost him a shot at winning the Green Jacket as Scottie Scheffler emerged victorious. Other notable results since April 2024 include a runner-up finish to Scheffler at the Memorial and the Tour Championship. He also tied for fourth at the Genesis Scottish Open and finished solo fourth at Colonial.
Fast forward to this year and Morikawa has been knocking on the door again, unable to break that barrier down. He finished The Sentry at 32-under par, but lost to Hideki Matsuyama by three. It marked the lowest score for a runner-up in PGA Tour history.
His next two starts came at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational, where he posted a pair of T-17s. Solid starts, no doubt, but he played much better this week at Bay Hill. And yet, he has no trophy to show for it.
Morikawa did not necessarily choke away the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday, but he did not do anything to win it. Instead, he watched Henley pass him by, leaving him shocked and asking, ‘Did this really happen again?’
Indeed, Morikawa’s winless drought will continue into next week’s Players Championship, where he has yet to post a top-10 finish. His best result at TPC Sawgrass came two years ago, when he tied for 13th. Perhaps that will change this week, as he is hitting the ball as well as he did in 2020 and 2021, when he won a pair of major championships that quickly cemented him as one of the best players in the world.
Then again, Morikawa seems to have a mental barrier of getting the job done right now. Winning on the PGA Tour is hard, and doing so at a course like Bay Hill even more so. But he let a terrific chance at winning slip away as this loss will likely stick with him for some time.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
