After the first winless season of his career, Collin Morikawa has added a new member to his team for the first time ever: a putting coach. The two-time major champion began working with instructor Stephen Sweeney at this week’s World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba.
Morikawa’s agent, Andrew Kipper, and Sweeney both confirmed the move. Kipper also confirmed that the 25-year-old star has not previously worked with a putting teacher. Irish-born Sweeney is based in Jupiter, Florida. His roster of clients includes Shane Lowry, Aaron Wise, Sebastian Munoz, Joaquin Niemann, Carlos Ortiz and Mito Pereira.
Morikawa’s dissatisfaction with his putting has been evident this year as he changed putters multiple times, most recently at the Presidents Cup. His results have stalled since winning the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai last November. He lost a five-shot lead at the Hero World Challenge two weeks later and in 20 subsequent worldwide starts his best finish is a T-2 at the Genesis Invitational in February. He has recorded four top 10s since the Genesis, including at the Masters and U.S. Open, but no wins. He has fallen to No. 9 in the Official World Golf Ranking from a high of second in April.
Even while racking up PGA Tour and major wins, Morikawa’s putting statistics have remained unflattering. In three seasons since turning professional, he has ranked 128th, 178th and 131st in Strokes Gained: Putting. Through two events this season, he ranks 202nd, although the Zozo Championship did not collect detailed data. At last month’s CJ Cup, he finished the week ranked 77th in putting in a 78-man field.
While flying from the CJ Cup to a TaylorMade commercial shoot in Florida, Morikawa discussed his putting with Wise and texted Sweeney a few days later. The pair spoke at length last Sunday and met the next day.
“We talked Sunday to get a feel for direction then we worked into the darkness in Mayakoba on Monday,” Sweeney told Golfweek. “Tuesday we worked before and after his round and on Wednesday before his pro-am.” They worked mostly on speed control, which Morikawa feels has caused issues for him of late.
In Thursday’s opening round, Morikawa shot an even-par 71 and followed with a bogey-free 63 on Friday. The putting statistics compiled at the World Wide Technologies Championship are more rudimentary than Strokes Gained data, but Morikawa averaged 1.75 putts per green in regulation in the first round and 1.563 on day two. At the CJ Cup, he averaged 1.825 putts per green in regulation over four rounds.
“We are not numbers-driven right now because we don’t have clear stats. I don’t know how close he’s hitting the ball to the hole,” Sweeney said. “But he’s excited about the direction it’s moving in.”
Because Morikawa has not before had a coach focused on his putting, Sweeney said he has never built up any practice techniques. “He had no real structure around his putting. He was very feel-oriented,” Sweeney said. “And the feel he used to win the PGA was very different than what he used to win the Open. He would get hot with his putting and wouldn’t know why, and then wouldn’t know why he got cold.”
Another Sweeney client saw that change up close. Pereira faced Morikawa in a Presidents Cup singles match and later told Sweeney he was awestruck at how well his American opponent putted. The two were paired again in the final round of the CJ Cup, when the opposite was true. “Same putter, same grip, same guy,” Sweeney said with a laugh. “No idea why he putted so differently one day to the other.”
Sweeney said the goal is to create a baseline for Morikawa to fall back on when things aren’t going so well. “That’s something he has in his full swing. When he misses a shot left or right, he knows why. He doesn’t have that baseline with his putting,” the coach explained. That structure, he hopes, will help bring out what he insists is a better putter than Morikawa is given credit for.
“He is a good putter because he’s putted well on every type of grass,” Sweeney said, pointing to his strong performances on Bermuda and bent greens at differing speeds. “He has that ability to putt well on every surface, which very few guys do.”
