Collin Morikawa and a reporter at the Rocket Classic had a tense exchange during a press conference when the two-time major winner took issue with Golfweek reporting how he had been approached and asked about parting ways with caddie Joe Greiner.
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The reporter approached Morikawa during the pro-am Wednesday to ask about making a second switch on his bag for 2025 at this week’s Rocket Classic. Morikawa split with Greiner and before that his caddie of five years JJ Jakovac. Golfweek first reported the news on Wednesday from Detroit Golf Club.
Morikawa then said later in his press conference that he had read the Golfweek article and took issue with the wording.
Q. And back to the caddie change, do you know whose going to caddie for you at the
British Open?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: I don’t.
And I read your article that you wrote. Look, I’m not here to tell people how to do their jobs,
but I don’t get why you would make me sound bad because you put out my quote that I was
playing with pro-am partners out front.
Those guys are paying a lot of money, they’re very important to the community, they’re very
important to the Rocket Classic, and for you to put out a quote like that to put me down and
saying, hey, wait two and a half hours, I mean, you called me up on the first tee, you know?
I’m not going to tell you how to do your job, you can write whatever you want, this is
America, but don’t put me down like that because it’s two and a half hours, Adam.
Q. I thought I actually gave you credit that you were focused on your pro-am
partners.
COLLIN MORIKAWA: OK. We can all read it very differently. That’s not how I read it. I
don’t know how — I’m just telling you like I think there’s a perspective where people can read
it like that. So I’m just going to leave it at that, that we knew I was going to have media in two
and a half hours. I’m on the first tee meeting my pro-am partners as they’re teeing off.
So on the caddie front, I don’t. It’s a process that I’m going through. Hopefully we’ll find out
when the time comes and I will let everyone know. Thank you.
Morikawa only made it five tournaments with his second after linking up with Greiner in April. Greiner was coming off a successful two-tournament fill-in stint with Justin Thomas, helping him win the RBC Heritage. Previously, Greiner was the longtime looper of Max Homa.
Greiner had been a replacement for Jakovac, who had looped for Morikawa since he turned pro in 2019. Jakovac was on the bag for both of Morikawa’s major titles at the 2020 PGA Championship and 2021 Open Championship.
“I think people, they’re going to be surprised but the way I put it is just because two people are great at what they do doesn’t mean they’re going to be great together,” Morikawa told reporters after Wednesday’s pro-am. “I think Joe is an amazing caddie, but I think just the way we kind of saw things or just day to day how we kind of went about it, we were just a little bit on a different page. That doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong, but for me it just didn’t feel right.”
Morikawa will have Korn Ferry Tour player and former Cal teammate KK Limbhasut on his bag at this week’s Rocket Classic, according to Golfweek.
“I have to explore other options,” Morikawa added. “I knew that coming in. I knew it was going to be a great start and it was going to be a fun thing for me to test out that I knew I put myself in, but at the end of the day you don’t know how you’re going to be, because we spend more time with them than anyone else in the world honestly. I spend more time with them than my wife sometimes. It’s a true relationship.”
Morikawa is currently No. 5 in the Official World Golf Ranking, but he hasn’t won a PGA Tour title since the 2023 Zozo Championship. And that’s the 28-year-old’s lone victory since claiming the claret jug nearly four years ago.
In his five starts with Greiner as caddie, Morikawa finished T-17 (Truist Championship), T-50 (PGA Championship), T-20 (Memorial), T-23 (U.S. Open) and T-42 (Travelers Championship).
“Look, I wish JJ and Joe all the best, but for right now it just felt like I needed a fill-in,” Morikawa concluded. “Got my buddy on the bag who played Berkeley with me who’s actually still on the Korn Ferry, so I appreciate him doing that and we’re going to go out and have a blast.”
