Collin Morikawa has defended Shane Lowry after his meltdown in the final few holes at the Cognizant Classic.
Lowry had one hand on the trophy before double-bogeying the 16th and 17th at PGA National.
The Irishman hit his tee shot into the water on consecutive holes to hand Nico Echavarria the victory.
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He has been criticised for repeatedly failing to get over the line, having also done similarly at the Dubai Invitational.
Morikawa knows from his experience that these things can happen and stood up for Lowry in his latest press conference.
Collin Morikawa empathizes with Shane Lowry after Cognizant Classic
Speaking before the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Morikawa compared Lowry’s struggles to his collapse at The Sentry.
Morikawa let slip a seven-shot advantage over Jon Rahm in the final round in Hawaii three years ago.
The American explained how it is almost impossible to stop yourself from losing when you’re having one of those days.
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“Yeah, golf’s just tough,” Morikawa said. “Golf’s tough. I’ll brief on like Hawaii three years ago, me against Rahm. I made the turn six shots up or something. Cruising, making birdies, doing fine, like not thinking.
Photo by Raj Mehta/Getty Images
“Sometimes it just hits you. Like you just run into a wall. And it’s hard to explain how that wall shows up, and it’s not about not being present, it’s not about doing this, doing that.
“I compare what Pebble was like, and I make a bogey on 5, and I’m like, ‘Man, I’ve got the rest of the day to go out and win this golf tournament.’
“And yet I had maybe a four-shot lead when I made my first bogey at Hawaii, and I’m like, ‘Holy,’ I was like, ‘Uh-oh.’ And you can never predict that. You can never practice that. You can never talk yourself out of that. Sometimes it just happens. It’s very hard to get out of it.”
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Collin Morikawa respects how Shane Lowry handled the situation
Morikawa also pointed to some potentialbad luck for Lowry if he was stuck between two clubs on the par-3 17th hole.
“Maybe for Shane, it was just a little bit of a tweener, and he just kind of fanned it,” Morikawa added. “So it’s amazing how certain events just kind of roll like that. And I feel for him.”
Meanwhile, regardless of what happened to Lowry, Morikawa was impressed with his reaction to the painful defeat.
The European Ryder Cup star spoke honestly to the media shortly after his round when it would have been easy to avoid their hard-hitting questions.
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“It’s amazing golf from Nico,” Morikawa continued. “But I’ve gone through it, and it just sucks. It’s just part of golf, unfortunately, and Shane did a great job handling it.”
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