COLLIN MORIKAWA MADE birdie on the final hole to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, his first tournament win since 2023. 

Morikawa endured a stunning Sunday surge from Scottie Scheffler and an agonising wait on the 18th fairway to hold his nerve, taking a brave line into the wind and over the cliffs, allowing the wind buffet his ball to a halt on the fringe of the green, from where he two-putted to get back into the winner’s circle.

“I kept believing in myself, at the beginning of the week this didn’t feel it was possible”, said Morikawa. 

“I tried not to think about the shot in that 20-minute span. If you catch yourself doing that you’re going to start ‘I need to do this, I need to do that’, I tried to waste that moment,  I tried to look out on the ocean as much as I could, I love being here at Pebble Beach. 

Morikawa put himself into contention with a stunning Saturday round of 62, across which he hit every single green in regulation in spite of gusty conditions. He started the day two shots behind overnight leader Akshay Bhatia, whose challenge faded with a zestless closing round. 

Morikawa meanwhile hung tough with a bunched leaderboard, playing the front nine in two-under before establishing a two-shot lead with back-to-back birdies on 15 and 16. He then made a mess of his iron on the par-three 17th, pulling it well left and getting down for bogey only. This meant he stood on the 18th tee in a share for the lead with Min Woo Lee, who birdied each of the final two holes to get into the clubhouse at 21-under. 

Morikawa had to wait an age to hit his approach to the final green, with Jacob Bridgeman tangling himself in a total mess in the group ahead: having gone long and left and found himself hitting from a patch of beach beneath a steep embankment, Bridgeman’s shot bounced off the cliff face and into the sea, sending him back down the fairway to take a belated drop. Having forced Morikawa to stand in the fairway for 19 minutes, Bridgeman finally holed out for a miraculous sort of bogey. 

Scheffler started the day eight shots off the lead but made an early surge before the wind began to truly howl, opening birdie-eagle-birdie. He stayed on a roll, making eagle at the next par-five, which he further burnished with a birdie on the next hole. 

Scheffler took the solo lead after the turn, and kept his foot on the accelerator with a birdie on the par-five 14th. He then found prime position on the 15th fairway, but overcooked his approach and ended up making a clumsy bogey, putting tentatively from seven feet. Trailing by a shot as he teed up on the final hole, Scheffler played the closing hole perfectly, leaving a stunning approach to less than three feet for his third eagle of the day. He carded a closing 63, which nonetheless included three bogeys. 

Shane Lowry finished strongly with a final-round 67, kindling hope of a late charge for the lead in reeling off birdies on 11, 14, 15, and 16. A par on the par-three 17th meant Lowry needed an eagle on the closing hole to tie clubhouse leader Scheffler, but those ambitions perished when he left his approach shot in a left bunker, with a subsequent putt from 10 feet for birdie catching the edge of the hole without dropping.  Lowry finished in a tie for eighth place, four shots off Morikawa. 

Rory McIlroy meanwhile closed a topsy-turvy week with a bogey-free 64, finishing a shot behind Lowry in a tie for 14th.

He was left to regret moments of sloppiness earlier in the week, included a pair of three-putt double bogeys on Thursday and a triple-bogey and double-bogey on his Saturday card. 

“Even if you turn those three doubles into bogeys and that triple into a bogey, that’s five shots and all of a sudden you’re looking at having a three-shot lead,” McIlroy said on Sunday. “But all in all, some really good stuff this week. Pretty encouraged going into next week for sure.”

The Tour’s next stop is the Genesis Invitational at Riviera.