Collin Morikawa scrambles around Harbour Town, shares RBC Heritage lead

Collin Morikawa had good reason to be all smiles on the 18th green Friday.

Although he didn’t have the best results in the second round, he entered the weekend with a 36-hole lead at RBC Heritage.

“On days like this when I don’t hit well, sometimes I think ahead, waiting for the next hole, waiting for the next shot,” Morikawa said after finishing a bogey-free 5-under 66. .

“But I still have so much faith in my swing that every shot had that chance. Whether it went right or wrong, I was able to accept the fact and move forward. .”

Morikawa didn’t hit a bogey on Friday thanks to his short game. He scrambled around Havertown and got a 2.763 around the green in the second round. That mark ranked second in this field.

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

He also missed his approaches in the right places, which definitely helped on a course where trouble could lurk almost anywhere, a staple of Pete Dye’s layouts.

“My hitting was bad, but my mistakes weren’t too bad, and I didn’t get to a point where my mistakes caused a lot of strokes,” Morikawa added.

“That’s the important thing: minimizing those mistakes.”

“[My caddie Jonathan Jakovac] I was really happy when I found it,” Morikawa said.

“We didn’t create anything new in the golf swing. It all made sense. We’ve been trying to make a lot of things make sense for a while now, but sometimes things just don’t work out. It’s been going on for more than a day, so it clearly worked.”

The two-time major champion kept the nuances of his discovery private, and rightly so. But whatever he found has certainly paid off since that Monday at Augusta.

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

“When I saw some bad shots a couple of months ago, or even two weeks ago, I was like, what am I going to fix, what am I going to try, what am I going to do with this shot?” Morikawa said.

“You start getting ahead of yourself and forget that you have to hit every shot and you have to put yourself in that position to even take the approach shot.”

Morikawa didn’t hit many great shots on Friday, but his stats reflect that. He hit 13 of his 14 fairways, but only eight of his greens were in regulation. He lost 2.254 strokes by the time he approached the green Friday, ranking him 63rd out of 69 competitors.

Still, he made mistakes in the right places, allowing him to easily climb up and down and avoid mistakes. Thanks to that, he currently shares the lead with Tom Hoge, Sepp Straka and JT Poston at 11 under.

“Even if I don’t have this kind of experience, I think I’ll learn a lot over time,” Morikawa added.

“Sometimes you don’t need all those pieces. I didn’t have it today, but it’s kind of old-school golf. When I think back to when I first turned pro, today is one of those days. It was one, but I didn’t feel good, I didn’t feel great, and I just put the numbers and move on to the next few days.

Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through.Be sure to check it out @_PlayingThrough Cover more golf. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko In the same way.