Collin Morikawa and Sergio Garcia were the marquee group of the day on the second round of the World Golf Championship-Dell Technologies Match Play tournament Thursday at Austin Country Club.
But someone forgot to tell Garcia until the back nine.
And when they did, Garcia’s game went into overdrive as he won three consecutive holes on 14, 15 and 16 and scrambled from an errant tee shot under the oak trees with one of his patented recovery shots to sink a 3-foot par putt on 18 for the draw.
Make no mistake, however.
Garcia “won” this tie, and Morikawa “lost” it.
At least, emotionally.
Of course, that’s how even everyone expected this round two match to be between two of the best ball-strikers in the game, the second-ranked player in the world against one of the game’s most experienced veterans. This was a showcase matchup, and both showed their top-shelf games, at least at different times.
Sergio Garcia fell behind by three holes through 11 of his second-round match with No. 2-seeded Collin Morikawa but fought back to force a draw.
“I’m not going to lie,” a relieved Garcia said. “I’m happy with it.”
Morikawa wishes he could say the same. However, after building a 3-up lead after nine holes and sustaining it the first two holes on the back nine, he let it get away from him to leave both golfers at 1-0-1 in Group 2 play.
Their immediate futures will be settled Friday when Garcia faces Jason Kokrak, who won his match with Robert MacIntyre 3 and 2 to improve to 1-1, and Morikawa goes up against the winless MacIntyre. The winners advance to Saturday’s quarterfinals, a spot Garcia has clinched each of the last two years.
“I can still get out of group play,” Morikawa said.
Their longer-term futures have longer shelf lives.
Morikawa, a whiz kid out of Cal, already has a pair of major championships in his pocket as he became the eighth player since 1920 to win multiple majors before the age of 25. He did so by capturing the 2020 PGA Championship in his backyard and last year’s British Open at the expense of Texas’ Jordan Spieth by two strokes when Morikawa put together a string of 31 consecutive holes without a bogey.
Incidentally, Spieth was the seventh player to pull off that magical feat at such a tender age in 2015.
Now while Garcia ranks 49th in the world and Spieth 15th, Morikawa is a solid No. 2 behind only Jon Rahm and on a path to becoming No. 1. He’s got five wins on Tour and two of them majors along with a tie for fourth in last year’s U.S. Open and eighth in his PGA Championship defense.
That’s consistency, folks.
“When you play a guy who’s so solid and who’s such a good player, he’s not a guy who’s going to give away things easy,” Garcia said. “But I did the first seven or eight holes.”
Garcia, Morikawa’s senior by almost two decades, was resourceful if not refined in the early going, but showed the savviness and creativity of his game that has helped make him one of the premier match-play artists in his sport.
He hasn’t been on his game of late. But the 42-year-old Spaniard, who lives part-time out at Spanish Oaks, has just a single top-10 finish this season with a tie for seventh at Mayakoba and only one win on the PGA Tour since his impressive Masters victory in 2017.
Morikawa has been tearing it up everywhere but Austin, failing to get out of the group play last year when he went 0-2-1 and lost to eventual champion Billy Horschel, but he’s obviously in the thick of things this week.
He admitted to being “a little bit” irritated by the turn of the events, but credits a man who with 29 victories has more match-play wins than anyone but Tiger Woods, Matt Kuchar and Ian Poulter and who has been a mainstay for the Europeans with 10 Ryder Cup appearances.
“Sergio made three birdies in a row,” Morikawa said. “And birdies are going to win holes.”
Austin’s adopted son never could get untracked early, pulling his irons and burning one hole after another with his putts, but he came on in a rush when he had to.
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The 25-year-old Morikawa looked as if he would school his more seasoned opponent on a crystal clear Thursday when he methodically built up a 3-up lead on the front nine.
Not even the backing of Longhorn fans seemed to help.
Garcia, of course, is married to the former Angela Akins, daughter of Texas All-American wishbone quarterback Marty Akins and his wife Pam.
When he was introduced on the first tee by announcer Ed Clements, he received loud applause and flashed the Hook ’em Horns sign. He did the same when he reached the green on the final hole.
Just the day before, Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian tagged along in the gallery to root on Garcia in his winning match over MacIntyre. The two are tight. Sarkisian even spoke at Garcia’s junior golf event.
This marquee pairing had some of the biggest crowds Thursday, especially on the front nine where they lined the fairways and shouted their support of Garcia.
But his game just refused to cooperate.
It was basically new money beating old money.
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Morikawa put Garcia behind the 8-ball from the outset. His lob wedge shot on the first hole backspin and cozied up to the hole just inches from the cup for a conceded birdie. Garcia’s seven-foot attempt lipped out, and he found himself down 1 from the get go.
Morikawa won the fifth hole to go 2 up after both hit terrific approach shots to identical distances from the pin, so close that Morikawa flipped a coin to see who would putt first. He then drained his 10-footer for a second birdie.
Disaster almost struck Morikawa on the sixth hole when his approach shot from the rough sailed right, bounced high off a slope and deep into the mulch beyond the cart path maybe 100 yards from the green. “A different zip code,” cracked golfer-turned-broadcaster Dylan Frittelli on PGA Tour Live.
Morikawa could have mailed it in from deep in the woods, but salvaged a par with a great chip. Garcia failed to cash in as his 15-foot birdie attempt slid by.
He tossed his ball to PGA volunteer scorer Terry Whitlow from Carrollton as she joked, “I should get an assist. He got rid of his bad ball.”
However, there were more in his bag where that came from when he nailed his tee shot on No. 7 but couldn’t convert. That run of bad luck continued on No. 9 when his approach shot out of a fairway bunker nestled in the canyon below the green, costing him a bogey and a 3-down deficit at the turn.
The two traded punches on the back nine, and a key par on 11 helped save Garcia’s bacon.
“When that putt on 11 was put in the bag,” he said, “I got a little bit of happiness in me. My putt on 15 (from 30 feet) was massive after he made a long putt for par.”
More joy was to come.
A rare Morikawa bogey on the par-5 12th gave Garcia an opening, but the 2 seed took it right back with a birdie putt from 14 feet, prompting Morikawa to throw a fist pump.
One hole later, Garcia put some more pressure on his opponent when he sank a 10-foot birdie putt on 14 — his first birdie of the day — to come within two holes with four to play. He almost went up on the 17th hole when Morikawa’s tee shot flew into the bunker, but Garcia’s 18-foot birdie putt came up inches short.
Then the save on 18 with a terrific low sand wedge to the green, and Garcia was still alive with much on the line Friday and the majors beginning next month.
“My game still needs to improve,” he said. “I’m not going to lie. There are some things I need to get better at. I feel like I’ve been playing OK, but not to my standards. Not amazing.”
But fit enough to be tied.
