Collin Morikawa won last year’s Zozo Championship by six shots and comes into this year’s tournament as the No. 4-ranked player in the world.
That doesn’t mean Morikawa thinks he’ll run away with the win during this week’s event at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Chiba, Japan.
“Look, winning’s tough. No matter what it is, winning is tough. You have to learn how to win,” Morikawa told reporters Wednesday.
“Just being able to win again and being on top of that leaderboard at the end of Sunday, that’s everything to me. That’s like you look back at a season, I look back at this season, I haven’t won. I’ve had a solid year, but I haven’t won. I’ve got one more opportunity at that.”
Although he knows it won’t be easy, Morikawa is looking forward to what he says is one of his favorite tournaments of the year.
“It’s a place I look forward to every year. … Whenever you come to a place that you have great memories, you try and use those to your advantage and hopefully we can use a lot of them from last year. There’s a lot of good shots that I hit out there,” Morikawa said.
“And it’s great that the course hasn’t changed. The weather looks like it’s going pretty good for us. Four solid days and hopefully we’re in contention again come Sunday.”
Fellow American Max Homa also expressed appreciation for the course.
“It’s in great shape. The bunkers and the rough and everything’s amazing. If you’re in position, you’ll be able to score,” Homa told reporters Wednesday.
But Homa also is aware of the challenges he’ll face on the course.
“It’s thick rough, it’s very narrow, it’s kind of typical Japanese golf, tree-lined,” he said. “If you’re in a good spot, you have a good chance to attack, everything’s really soft. The greens are very complex, so leaving it below the hole is very important, but it’s tough to do with how difficult it is tee to green at times.”
“It’s quite a bit harder than I remembered. It’s a long golf course, but with the soft conditions I imagine guys who are playing well will make quite a few birdies from the fairway.”
Homa is coming into Zozo ranked No. 27 after a challenging year. After starting the season strong, even finishing tied for third at the Masters in April, Homa struggled most of the rest of the season.
“Yeah, I mean, I played terribly, but … I am excited for ’25 in that a lot of things I wasn’t particularly good at to start ’24 I did become quite good at. So with another couple months of work and being able to hone in the things I didn’t do well in the past season, you know, I still grew in areas,” Homa said.
“I’m excited for the things I’ve gotten better at and I’m just going to continue to work on the things I struggled with last year. So it was a frustrating year, but it doesn’t mean that that’s always going to be a net negative.”
Ahead of the Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal in Quebec in September, he parted ways with his longtime coach, Mark Blackburn, citing a need for a break and to take more ownership of his golf swing.
“I’m definitely a little rusty. I took a bit of time off after the Presidents Cup … It’s been nice trying to figure out and own my own stuff a bit more. But yeah, the swing feels OK. Again, you could get a little rusty when you’re working on new stuff…” the six-time PGA tour winner said.
“It’s definitely been a chaotic few weeks, especially the last week getting ready for this, but we got here Sunday, and I was happy to have Monday through Wednesday to get some work in and spent a bunch of time on the course.”
The no-cut event is the fifth of eight tournaments on the FedEx Cup Fall schedule, which finalizes the top 125 players who will retain exempt status for 2025. Nos. 126-150 after the fall will retain conditional status.
Players who finished Nos. 51-70 in the FedEx Cup have secured their tour cards, but are competing for spots in the first two signature events after the season-opening The Sentry on Jan. 2-5.
The event, which was first played in 2019, is co-sanctioned with the Japan Golf Tour Organization and the field includes 14 JGTO members.
Morikawa and Homa will be joined by other top players like Japanese superstar Hideki Matsuyama, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele and others.
