Flush Your Irons Like Collin Morikawa
Collin Morikawa is one of the best iron and wedge players on the PGA Tour, PGA professional Jack Backhouse breaks down his swing to see what we can learn.
Collin Morikawa is renowned for his incredible iron and wedge play, nearing the top of all the stats leaderboards on the PGA Tour with a blade in his hand. In the Collin Morikawa swing analysis below, PGA Pro Jack Backhouse breaks down his swing to see what you can learn.
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Set-Up
Morikawa has an extremely weak left-hand grip. His thumb runs down the middle of the grip, but the rest of his hand sits off on the side of the club, making this a very ‘open clubface’ hold of the club. This position requires some compensations in the swing later on, so it is not something to emulate.
He stands with his toes very square which reduces hip mobility, but stands in great posture and great balance.
Backswing
Morikawa’s backswing really sets him up for great ball striking. The first thing he does that would make him a great ball hitter is how well he stays in his posture whilst he turns back. His hips have very little lateral movement, his upper centre doesn’t move at all, and his head remains extremely still. If you can learn to turn with so little lateral movement, you will strike the ball well.
We also see the compensation for his extremely weak grip at the top of the backswing, where Morikawa bows his left wrist a lot. This is a difficult thing to do, especially if you do not have flexible wrists. The club gets to the top on a great plane and very square so this is a great place to hit from.
Downswing
Morikawa starts down with a big hip shift towards the target, getting his hips far ahead of the golf ball. This helps move the low point of his swing forwards.
He also shallows the club in transition, moving the head of the club back behind him to start down, which prevents his swing from being too steep and having too much of a left-swing direction. This is a great move to copy for amateurs and slicers.
He maintains his bowed wrist into impact, helping him de-loft the club and hit that low spinny fade ball flight Morikawa is famous for. This wrist position is so important as it allows him to control the clubface angle and hit the ball accurately.
Into the Finish
Morikawa does a brilliant job of not letting the club face turn over, whilst dragging his hands left through the ball. This produces a very Hogan-esque image where the club is moving left and the ball exits out to the right.
Collin never curves the ball to the left and its the cut that allowed him to win the PGA Championship, so if you want more control of the ball then work on this. Stable face and controlled fades are a brilliant option for approach shots.
What can we learn?
Despite some of the idiosyncrasies in Morikawa’s golf swing, there are a few things that you can copy if you want to improve your own ball striking and iron play.
- Solid posture and a grip that matches your ball flight intention
- A perfectly centred pivot in the backswing
- Hip shift towards the target to start down.
- hands forward of the ball at impact!
Keep an eye out for more tour winners’ swing analysis’ in the future.
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Jack Backhouse
Jack is a PGA Golf Professional who specialises in coaching, teaching golf to beginners and top-level amateurs for 10+ years. He also loves his golf equipment and analysing the data of the latest clubs on the market using launch monitors, specialising in blade irons and low-spinning drivers despite having a chronically low ball flight.
Although Jack has no formal journalism training, He has been reading What's In The Bag articles since he started playing at 12 and studying golf swings since his dad first filmed his swing to reveal one of the worst over-the-top slice swings he reckons has ever been recorded, which set him off on the path to be a coach. His favourite club ever owned was a Ping G10 driver bought from a local top amateur with the hope that some of the quality golf shots would come with it (they didn't), and worst was a Nike SQ driver he only bought because Tiger was using it.
Jack is a member of Sand Moor Golf Club and regularly gets out on the golf course to prepare for tournaments. Jack uses a TaylorMade BRNR Mini driver, a half set of TaylorMade P7MB irons, MG4 wedges and a TaylorMade TP Reserve putter.
