{"id":4367,"date":"2026-05-26T07:29:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T07:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/4367\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T07:29:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T07:29:57","slug":"collin-morikawa-won-his-first-golf-tournament-in-847-days-this-photo-helps-explain-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/4367\/","title":{"rendered":"Collin Morikawa won his first golf tournament in 847 days. This photo helps explain why"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peak newsletter\u00a0| A version of this story first appeared in\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s weekly newsletter covering the mental side of sports.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to receive the Peak newsletter directly in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Collin Morikawa stood along the California coast and stared out at the Pacific Ocean on Sunday afternoon. It was unusual only because of the circumstances:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Morikawa was on the final hole of a high-stakes golf tournament, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
\nHe needed to birdie the hole to win his first tournament in 847 days.
\nA player in the group in front of him hit his ball first onto the beach and then into the water.
\nAs a result, Morikawa had to wait 20 minutes to hit his second shot, an excruciatingly long time in golf (my dad and I once left a course mid-round because we had to wait 10 minutes between shots. Standing over my ball for that long drove me up a wall. It didn\u2019t help that I suck at golf).<\/p>\n

Several times, the CBS cameras showed Morikawa walk to the edge of the fairway and stare out at the ocean, just like the photo above. I watched Morikawa in those moments and thought about how my insides would turn to pudding\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rick Sessinghaus watched the same thing and thought, Perfect.\u00a0He\u2019s definitely in control of his mental state.<\/p>\n

Sessinghaus is both Morikawa\u2019s swing coach and mental performance coach.<\/p>\n

Morikawa, 29, exploded on the PGA Tour several years ago, winning five tournaments and two majors in his first two years. The Los Angeles Times called him \u201cgolf\u2019s next big thing.\u201d CNN described him as the \u201c23-year-old who\u2019s made breaking records a habit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he struggled with what Sessinghaus called \u201cexpectation management\u201d and \u201cperfectionist tendencies.\u201d He could get into his own head.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Morikawa hit his tee shot into the fairway at 18 and grabbed his club for his second shot. However, up ahead, Jacob Bridgeman had hit his second shot onto the rocky beach below the 18th green. Then he hit his third shot off the rocks and into the water. Bridgeman took a drop all the way back in the 18th fairway, which is what led to the long wait for Morikawa.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s very little way to prepare for that exact scenario, but Morikawa knew what he did and didn\u2019t want to do at that moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to think about anything else other than golf,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cThankfully, you had the nicest backdrop you could ask for, so that was very, very easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, it came down to focus. Just not the kind of hyper-detailed, shot-specific focus I normally associate with golf.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, focus is the No. 1 skill,\u201d Sessinghaus told me. \u201cWhat you pay attention to in the present moment is going to dictate a lot of your emotions and where your energy goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0He explained that focus can be broken down into four quadrants, and used a golf shot as an easy example:<\/p>\n

Broad external: \u201cI can look out in the distance (external), and there\u2019s a ton of information (broadly).\u201d
\nBroad internal: \u201cI take that information and analyze it. What does this lie mean? What is the wind doing?\u201d
\nNarrow external: \u201cI\u2019ve got a target that I\u2019m paying attention to in my head that I react to.\u201d
\nNarrow internal: \u201cI\u2019m hitting a 7-iron 15 feet left of the hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expanded awareness is the first stage (broad external), a simple way to get out of your head. Sessinghaus said golfers tend to revert to \u201cnarrow internal\u201d thinking in tense moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What I like about the idea of expanded awareness: It\u2019s something anyone can do in any situation \u2014 a little mental skill to get away from the spin cycle of negative or anxious thoughts under pressure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Here\u2019s how, according to Sessinghaus:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to have your eyes up, good posture.\u201d
\n\u201cPick a very specific point in the distance. Right now, I\u2019m in my office and I\u2019m looking out a window at a point in the distance.\u201d
\n\u201cI then start to get my field of vision to pick up more and more until I can see 180 degrees in front of me. I can see something on my left side, on my right side and in front of me at the exact same time.\u201d
\n\u201cThen have some form of smooth, rhythmic breathing. Even just box breathing: inhale for three, hold for three, exhale for three, hold for three.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great way to reset the nervous system,\u201d Sessinghaus said. \u201cYou\u2019re not paying attention to your thoughts, you\u2019re not in your head spinning, you\u2019re not thinking about what could go wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Morikawa did Sunday. Several times, he paced from his ball in the fairway to the edge of the course and just looked into the horizon. Instead of concentrating on his upcoming shot for 20 minutes \u2014 the mechanics, the distance, the wind \u2014 he allowed his mind to take in the expanse, not focus on the pressure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After 20 minutes, he hit a nice second shot, birdied the 18th hole and won his first tournament<\/a> in more than two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, I need a drink,\u201d he said on CBS after the tournament. \u201cI need a drink real bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to receive the Peak newsletter directly in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peak newsletter\u00a0| A version of this story first appeared in\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s weekly newsletter covering the mental side of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1553,44,2960],"class_list":["post-4367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-collin-morikawa","tag-collin-morikawa","tag-golf","tag-peak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}