Collin Morikawa is tired of finishing second and has a plan to get back on top

ATLANTA — After Collin Morikawa fell four strokes short of catching Scottie Scheffler at the 2024 Tour Championship, he was asked to name the word that best summarized his season. “Winless,” he said with a faint smile.

Morikawa posted a final-round 5-under 66, reeling off six birdies after an opening-hole bogey to finish second and bank $12.5 million in bonus money. Morikawa started the tournament six strokes back in the staggered start and cut the deficit to two strokes with a birdie at No. 8 before Scheffler poured in three straight birdies and made an eagle at 14.

“I knew he wasn’t just going to come backward, and I still had to make a lot of birdies,” Morikawa said.

It was his seventh top-five finish of the season, which speaks to the number of times he was in contention, but failed to hoist a trophy. Morikawa, a six-time Tour winner with two majors to his credit, said he’s only going remember the victories. The 27-year-old former Cal Bear took some solace in winning the “ghost leaderboard,” shooting 22-under 262, the lowest score for 72 holes at East Lake Golf Club without the starting strokes. That was a stroke better than Sahith Theegala and two better than Scheffler on the gross leaderboard.

“It’s nice,” he said. “I knew that was kind of the goal for the week, right, to come out on top on this kind of fake leaderboard and see how things played out.”

Later, on Instagram, he joked, “Signed up for the gross division, forgot to sign up for the net.”

But there’s no trophy associated with it (though he will get the most Official World Golf Ranking points). To collect more hardware for his trophy cabinet he’s going to have to play better final rounds.

“That’s what it comes down to,” said Morikawa, who in addition to the Tour Championship played in the final pairing at both the Masters and PGA Championship as well as RBC Heritage and Memorial. “Those final rounds bit me in the butt.”

He’s made impressive strides to improve his biggest weaknesses. He ranked ninth in Strokes Gained: Around the Green this season, up from T-88 last year and 152nd the season before that. Likewise, his putting was a career-best T-62 this season, up from 114 last year and a dreadful 178th in SG: putting in 2021. Of course, his sterling iron game dipped to 41st in SG: Approach the Green this season from second, third and first the previous three seasons.

“Irons might have been close to my weakest part this year,” he admitted. “Irons I think are the biggest asset of a golf game that you can have. I think Scottie shows that. I’ve shown that in my first few years. Look, if I can dial it in and get back to who I was before and even better now, it’ll be hopefully a fun 2025.”

And one in which he returns to the winner’s circle again.