Ahead of the PGA Championship, Collin Morikawa’s career record read 26 PGA Tour starts, two wins.
Make that 27 starts, three wins. Or two starts in a major championship, one win.
However you want to look at the stats, it’s a remarkable start to life as a professional for the 23-year-old American.
On a fascinating final day in the season’s first major that long looked destined for a play-off, it needed a standout moment. And Morikawa delivered it at the par-4 16th.
That eagle took him two clear and a joint round-of-the-week 64 – tying the lowest final-round score ever shot by a PGA champion – was enough to see him over the line.
Morikawa becomes the third youngest player to win the PGA Championship before his 24th birthday, behind Rory McIlroy and Jack Nicklaus and one month better than Tiger Woods.
He is the seventh player in the four major era to win one of his first two major starts, joining Ben Curtis (2003 Open), Keegan Bradley (2011 PGA Championship), Orville Moody (1969 US Open), Fred Daly (1947 Open), and Bob Hamilton (1944 PGA Championship).
His 65-64 129 was the lowest combined weekend score ever at a major. The previous record of 130 was held by Tom Watson (1977 Open), Ian Baker-Finch (1991 Open), Anders Forsbrand (1994 Open), Marc Leishman (2015 Open), and Woods (2018 PGA Championship).
It’s worth repeating: He’s 23.
- Related: What’s in Morikawa’s bag?
Overnight leader Dustin Johnson will have to wait five weeks before getting a shot at winning a second major after he tied for 2nd with Paul Casey.
Matthew Wolff, another of the Class of 2019, finished in the pack at 10-under, which was for a long time the number to beat, alongside Bryson DeChambeau, Jason Day, Tony Finau and Scottie Scheffler.
Justin Rose, Xander Schauffele, Joel Dahmen and Cameron Champ made up the top 10.
Defending champion Brooks Koepka started the day two back and ended it 10 back after an uncharacteristic 4-over 74.
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- More from the PGA: McIlroy takes aim at Koepka after DJ dig
- More from the PGA: McIlroy’s astonishing act of sportsmanship
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Record-breaking Sullivan back in the winners’ circle
Andy Sullivan carded rounds of 66, a course-record 62, 64 and 65 to finish on a remarkable 27-under-par at Hanbury Manor to win the English Championship – his fourth European Tour title and first in five years.
Sullivan won three times in 2015 to earn a spot in the following year’s Ryder Cup, and he was fighting back the tears in his post-round interview at Hanbury Manor.
“I’m proud of myself,” he said. “I wasn’t quite stuck in the doldrums but it just hasn’t quite happened for me since those three wins 2015 and it feels like a weight off my shoulders now, and I think it told out there today.”
Sullivan’s 72-hole score of 257 is a European Tour record, though falls two short of Ernie Els’ 29-under when relative to par.
The UK Swing now heads for a two-week stint at Celtic Manor.
- Related: European Tour schedule
Kang cashes in on crushing Ko collapse
Danielle Kang won her second straight LPGA Tour event after an astonishing collapse from Lydia Ko.
Five clear with six to play, former World No 1 Ko was on the verge of ending two years and 44 tournaments without a win. But consecutive birdies for Kang and a bogey at 14 for Ko saw that lead cut to two.
Ko also bogeyed 16 to set up a tense finish and the wheels came off at 18. After her third shot, a routine chip, slid off the back of the green, she then duffed her chip coming back and it rolled into a bunker. She splashed to 10 feet and missed the putt. The double-bogey 7 handed Kang the title.
Next up for the women is the Ladies Scottish Open and the Women’s Open.
- Related: LPGA Tour schedule
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