He’s got one round in the books after a month away from golf to rest his ailing back, which is progress for Collin Morikawa. He just never expected the return to be so nerve-wracking.
“Honestly, it’s probably the toughest round I’ve ever played,” the two-time major champion said after a 2-over-par 74 in the first round of the Masters Tournament on Thursday. “You know, I’m just fighting. Like, it’s a battle. I don’t think I’ve been able to get comfortable out there and trusting the entire body. So I’m proud of the way things kind of played out. You know, yeah, the expectations are kind of thrown out the window right now.”
Morikawa, who won at Pebble Beach in February with a 22-under score, had gone 30 days without competition before teeing it up at Augusta National. He experienced back pain on a practice swing on the second hole of the first round of the Players Championship on March 12.
“I think it’s a trust factor, right? I think when it happened out on the course at The Players, you know, there’s a certain doubt factor of, like, is this going to happen, is this not?” Morikawa said. “I’ve been hitting balls for the past week and a half, but not comfortably. By that, it’s just more like my head gets in the way, and the head can stop so much. When I teed it up on Tuesday on No. 1 (for a practice round), I mean, I honestly didn’t know if I was going to make contact.”
The good news was he didn’t experience any back pain on Thursday. But now there are other problems. Walking was the hardest part, he said.
“It’s just a trust thing,” he said. “My legs don’t want to trust that it’s going to hold up the back and the rest of the body. When that’s feeling wobbly, plus thankfully this course is firm. The legs just don’t feel comfortable right now. They don’t feel strong like they’re underneath me. I don’t think it’s really muscle loss. It’s just a trust factor and saying that the legs are under there that you can go fire the way I used to. I use so much of my lower body to hit my shots that, you know, today and this past week of hitting balls, it’s been a lot of upper body just kind of firing.”
There was some concern about Morikawa’s long game after three days on the Augusta National range, both in terms of the number of balls hit and the longest shots. On Monday, his longest drive was 284 yards on 56 shots. On Tuesday, it was 280 yards on 45 shots. He also hit 45 balls on Wednesday, with his longest shot being 279.
In his warmup before Thursday’s first round, he hit 41 balls with a long drive of 277 yards.
Once the adrenaline kicked in, he averaged 310.6 yards off the tee, with his long drive being 314.5 yards. Still, he called some of his drives “little dinks,” noting the fairways were firm and allowed a lot of roll.
For the round he had four bogeys and two birdies.
After the Players Championship, he took his extended break in order to be ready for the Masters.
“Out of all the events, probably not the one I want to skip,” he said of the Masters. “You never know if you’re going to find some luck and be able to figure something out. So we were able to grind it out today, and hopefully we can grind it out for three more days.”
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: At 2026 Masters, Collin Morikawa battles trust issues after injury
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