Have you seen the Comcast Business commercial featuring Collin Morikawa (TaylorMade TP5)?
If you haven’t, he takes a shot out of pine straw, and the ball bounces off a Comcast van and goes in a variety of directions before ending up in the water, only to spit out by an alligator and make its way onto the green and into the hole.
“I’ve had some tough lies and taken some impossible shots, but this is next level,” Morikawa says in the commercial.
It’s funny and even features the actor, Chistopher McDonald, who portrayed Shooter McGavin in the film Happy Gilmore. There’s also other people of note in the commercial, including golf commentators Dan Hicks and Mike Tirico.
The reason I mention this is because while the commercial is funny, there has been nothing funny about his play in 2024, which was clearly underperforming,
He is ranked 11th in the world – at one point a few years back he was ranked second, following major wins in the PGA Championship in 2020 and almost a year later in The Open Championship.
He has been showing vast improvement with a ninth-place finish in the RBC Heritage, which was preceded by a tie for third in the Masters. Were it not for a couple errors he might have had a shot at winner Scottie Scheffler (Titleist Pro V1) in the Masters. Then again, Scottie is playing on another level, which he displayed the next week in the RBC Heritage, starting off slowly by his standards because he hadn’t gone through his regular practise routine and then got into a groove.
Previous to the Masters, Morikawa tied for 75th in the Valero Texas Open, which was preceded by a tie for 45th in the Players Championship. He failed to make the cut in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. In 10 tournaments this year, he has missed the cut. In his career, he has made 90 of 109 cuts.
What’s interesting is he is experimenting with the same Spyder Tour X mallet putter that Scheffler has used with tremendous success, though Morikawa says he still feels comfortable with the blade putter. He’s used the TaylorMade TP Soto, or a variation of it, the last two seasons. He used a Logan Olson blade prototype putter during the practice rounds of the Arnold Palmer and then used it in the tournament. Scheffler used the Logan putter in late 2023 before making the switch to the mallet in the Arnold Palmer and won.
Prior to the Players Championship, GolfWRX.com talked to Morikawa about switching putters.
“Yeah, I’ve switched putters my entire career, but you know just what we’ve seen I like how it rolls off the face,” he said. When you actually get the data, it’s incredible how much better it rolls, even though the TaylorMade rolled in insanely good. It’s nearly the exact same putter, the same look. We cleaned up a few things that I actually never looked at.”
He said he remains open to switching gear.
“What’s crazy about professional golf is that we have everything at our disposal,” he said. “Like, you can change anything. You can change all this, change all that, and you kind of go down this path sometimes where you’re like it’s too much and you don’t really know what you need. And sometimes what’s there is good enough. But it’s cool. You know, we went through a lot of little tweaking here and there, seeing the face, not seeing it, the dot, and (brand designer Logan Olson) just cleaned it all up. So I’m loving it. It’s been fun. (Olson) is incredibly smart.”
HAPPY HOUR: I’m really enjoying what Smylie Kaufman is doing as a golf analyst in his Happy Hour features. It’s clear he is in his element sitting with players who have completed a round and guest with him while he is positioned on a par-3 hole. It’s great to hear him do interviews with players who clearly feel comfortable talking to him. Billy Horschel (Titleist Pro V1x) took it in good stride after finishing his second round in the Texas Children’s Houston Open when he joined Kaufman and was shown footage of himself in multi-colored pants winning the 2014 Tour Championship. I think Smylie’s Happy Hour and the features in which players are being interviewed while competing in a tournament have added to watching tournaments.
