Fresh off a stellar round at Pebble Beach on Saturday, Collin Morikawa didn’t bask in the glory; he laid bare the biggest flaw in his game, which humanized him, during a candid chat with CBS reporter Amanda Balionis, who is known to get candid and emotional confessions from golfers.

“I am one of the hardest on myself, and I think we all are, but sometimes, you just keep pushing yourself in the wrong direction. And I am trying to dig myself out of that,” Morikawa answered when asked what he feels about his Saturday at Pebble Beach.

Morikawa’s frustration is understandable. Morikawa’s last win came in October 2023 at the ZOZO Championship. That was his first win since The Open 2021. Not to mention, in the past few years, he had squandered more than his fair share of potential wins, including surrendering a five-stroke lead to Viktor Hovland at the 2021 Hero World Challenge.

This season, he missed the cut at the Sony Open and didn’t make it into the top 50 at the WM Phoenix Open (T54). Add to that his health concerns, and these numbers are sure to give anyone scar tissue. That was quite obvious following his Sony Open week, as he revealed in a post.

During another post-round interview at Pebble Beach, Morikawa shared a similar sentiment.

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“Look, I’m very hard on myself. I think we all are, but I’m very, very hard.” Earlier, he shared, “The problem is the results matter sometimes, and for me in this world after the past year, three years, or whatever you want to call it, I just haven’t had the results I’ve wanted.”

Morikawa hasn’t posted a top 10 since a T8 at the Rocket Classic in June. But he has a chance to change that this weekend, which is why Morikawa looked happy with everything that went down on Saturday. He felt it was his best round in years.

He started the third round eight shots behind the tournament co-leaders, Akshay Bhatia and Ryo Hisatsune, at T27. But after shooting 11 birdies in the third round, he climbed within two shots of Bhatia and is now tied for second with Sepp Straka and Jake Knapp. On this day, Morikawa’s ball-striking was nothing short of masterful.

He hit every single green in regulation for the first time in his career. This historic accuracy, which saw him gain an astonishing 6.46 shots on the field with his approach play alone, meant his putter barely had to work. Converted just 58 feet of putts, showing his approaches were dialed in. He gained nearly nine strokes in SG: Approach to Green (8.891) there, topping the field.

To reach this stage, Morikawa has made some equipment tweaks, including adding more loft to his irons to improve spin, control, and consistency in his iron play in late 2025. Plus, he has had plenty of calls with his mental health coach, Rick Sessinghaus, to unlock a round as low as his 61 at the 2023 TOUR Championship.

“He reminded me yesterday when I first came out and turned pro, I didn’t care about honestly making cuts or top 20s; I came out to win. When he told me that yesterday, there was that mindset switch going into today. I wanted to come out and win, win the weekend, win the tournament,” Morikawa said.

Balionis, on the other hand, has often been at the end of such confessions. After Chris Gotterup won his second event of the year at WMPO, she made him cry by asking him about playing without being worried about winning. In 2023, Balionis interviewed a tearful Nick Taylor after his historic putt, marking the first Canadian to win their National Open in 69 years, an “emotionally charged” moment she cited as a career highlight.

Morikawa’s stellar round wasn’t just about climbing the leaderboard; it was about restoring the self-belief Morikawa needs to compete with the best. With his confidence renewed, he’s already setting his sights on the game’s biggest challenge.

Collin Morikawa’s next big goal is to take down Scottie Scheffler

During a post-round interview after the third round at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Collin Morikawa said, “I know deep down inside me, like, I’m a competitor. I feel like I can play against the top players in the world. Even a guy like Scottie Scheffler, when he’s playing great. Like, you know, I believe that, and until the day I don’t, I’m going to keep going head-on.”

Now, you have to be pretty confident when saying that about Scottie Scheffler, the guy who has increasingly started looking impossible to beat. Currently, at Pebble Beach, he is T22 heading into the final round. But if you remember anything from his epic weekend at the WM Phoenix Open, you know he can contend even now, an argument Rory McIlroy can agree with.

So, beating Scheffler is hard, but following on the lessons from Rick Sensinghaus, Morikawa added, “I’ve got to set that mindset [that I can win] at the beginning of the day, at the beginning of the week, and now I think we’ve given ourselves at least a chance to come tomorrow.”

It’s impossible to say if Morikawa can repeat the magic, but he still has a chance to beat Scheffler just to make a point.