World number 4 Collin Morikawa is one of three golfers who have announced their withdrawal from the upcoming Farmers Insurance Open on Sunday.
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Morikawa has joined Denmark's Nicolai Hojgaard and Tyler McCumber as absentees among the list of 156 participants at Torrey Pines. They will be replaced by Wesley Bryan, Hayden Springer and S.H. Kim, respectively. No official reasons were given for the absences of any of them. The news comes a day after world number 2 Xander Schauffele withdrew from the San Diego event due to a "medical issue."
Collin Morikawa, situation
The Farmers Insurance Open will be played from Wednesday to Saturday next week. The tournament is being held one day earlier than usual to avoid overlapping with the NFL conference finals next Sunday.
Collin Morikawa (born February 6, 1997) is an American golfer who plays primarily on the PGA Tour and PGA European Tour.
Born in Los Angeles to Debbie and Blaine Morikawa, of Chinese and Japanese origins respectively, he began playing golf at the age of 5.[1] He studied at the University of California - Berkeley, where he played the sport from 2015 to 2019 before graduating with a degree in business administration. In December 2021, Morikawa became engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Katherine Zhu. They married on November 26, 2022.
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He turned professional in 2019 by taking part in the Canadian Open, where he placed 14th. In August 2020, he won the PGA Championship at his first attempt, then repeated the success in July 2021 by winning the British Open, again as a rookie.[1][2] This made him the first golfer in history to win two majors in his first appearance.[1] The Californian also became the seventh golfer since 1900 to win the Open on his debut after Jock Hutchison (1921), Denny Shute (1933), Ben Hogan (1953), Tony Lema (1964), Tom Watson (1975) and Ben Curtis (2003)[3] in addition to setting a new record for strokes on the Royal St. George's course with 265 (the previous record of 267, set in 1993, was held by Greg Norman).[3]. In 2021, he participated in the XXXII Olympic Games in Tokyo, finishing third after the scheduled fourth rounds, but tied with nine other golfers. In the playoffs, however, he was overtaken by Pan Cheng-tsung, finishing in fourth place.
