Golf Channel
Colin Morikawa, minutes after his abrupt withdrawal from the Memorial Tournament due to back spasms, summed up his thoughts in six letters across two words.
“This is bad.”
actually. On a few fronts. First, the immediate. Only twice past the finalist on Sunday, Morikawa was a Muirfield Village winner before, at the Workday Charity Open 2020 – but his chances are now gone.
He said the reason was sudden.
“A muscle in the back, lower back, kind of gave out. We were doing some reflex things, trying to reach down and trying to pick something like fast and low. I went after that weird. Literally I’ve never had this in my life. I’ve hurt my back for a while before, but Nothing was that bad, especially not having never warmed up, nor having done anything before the Tour. …
“I think it’s the first tournament I’ve pulled out of in my entire life. I really can’t think of anywhere else I’ve had to pull out. It sucks because this is a tournament I love. I played well and put ourselves in the competition. But I have to take care of myself and I have to be smart. “.
Morikawa said he tried to go—hitting 10 balls on the range and “cutting a 9-iron at 95 yards—but he called it out. Now there’s doubt.
In two weeks the US Open will be held at the Los Angeles Country Club – in Morikawa’s home state, California. Next month is The Open Championship, where in 2021 he won the second of his two major tournaments. For his part, he said he was not worried.
“I mean, I want to be 100 percent by next weekend, you know, so I can get really good at it. Just not a time in the season where you want that to happen. And all the signs, I woke up okay, all the signs led to me being okay. Just a weird little warm-up accident.”
Then again, back injuries can linger. It can also shake from a spasm.
This issue sometimes cannot be dismissed so easily. On the Golf Channel broadcast, analyst Frank Nobilo remarked, “If you can’t spin, you can’t take a swing.”
However, one thing is for sure.
“Don’t do that exercise again,” Morikawa said.