FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, July 18th, 2021
NOTES AND QUOTES – COLLIN MORIKAWA WINS THE 149TH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP ON NBC (FINAL ROUND)
“When you put the pressure on that guy, you’re asking for trouble. He handles it as well as anyone I’ve seen since Tiger Woods.” – Paul Azinger on Morikawa
“Didn’t take long for Collin Morikawa to put his name on the Claret Jug. 1-for-1 at The Open!” – Dan Hicks
“He’s 24 years old going on 40.”– Jim “Bones” Mackay on Morikawa’s maturity
“Jordan Spieth is back. There’s no doubt about that.” – Azinger on Spieth, who finished in 2nd Place
STAMFORD, Conn. – July 18, 2021 – NBC Sports presented final round coverage of the 149th Open Championship from Royal St. George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, Kent, England on NBC, capped by Live From The Open post-round coverage on GOLF Channel.
Collin Morikawa shot a final round 66 to win his first career Open Championship and become the first player to win two different majors in his first attempt (2020 PGA Championship, 2021 Open Championship). Jordan Spieth (-13) finished in second place.
149th Open Championship – Final Round Leaderboard
| Player | Total |
| Collin Morikawa | -15 |
| Jordan Spieth | -13 |
| Louis Oosthuizen | -11 |
| Jon Rahm | -11 |
| Dylan Frittelli | -9 |
On Collin Morikawa (-15, 149th Open Champion)
Morikawa to reporter Todd Lewis on his focus and execution: “Execution was a little iffy, but I knew there would be trouble. You’re going to hit bad shots…but I was able to get a way out of it and make some crucial putts. My putting stats might not be up there but they came in the moment I needed them.”
Morikawa to Lewis on his approach for the Tokyo Olympics: “The same goal – to win. But it’s also to make memories. I’m going to be called an Olympian for life. It’s going to be the coolest experience. And I’m very happy that the golf is in the Olympics now because it just adds that extra incentive to add something to your resume that not a lot of people can do. Any time you’re able to represent your country, the U.S.A., it means a lot.”
Dan Hicks: “Didn’t take long for Collin Morikawa to put his name on the Claret Jug. 1-for-1 at The Open!”
Paul Azinger: “This is some of the best clutch putting we have ever seen…when you put the pressure on that guy, you’re asking for trouble. He handles it as well as anyone I’ve seen since Tiger Woods.”
Brandel Chamblee, who picked Morikawa to win The Open Championship on Live From Wednesday night: “It’s said quite often, and mostly about people who want to change the game, that the game is dominated by bomb-and-gouge…inferring the game is dominated by ‘muscle men’ and not ‘thinking men’. How then do you describe the game of Collin Morikawa, and how then do you describe his success?…it is a throwback to Ben Hogan. It is a throwback to the tactician and the more cognitive game of Tiger Woods.”
Jim “Bones” Mackay on Morikawa’s maturity: “He’s 24 years old going on 40. He came over and spoke to me on the left side of (the 8th) fairway while waiting for Louis to hit, and I just get the feeling that he flatlines it out here. He has a gameplan and he sticks to it because he keeps things so small out here. He isn’t worried about things like leaderboards or where he stands.”
Gary Koch on Morikawa’s switch to the saw putting grip: “I can’t help but think the 1998 Open Champion Mark O’Meara has a smile on his face. It was O’Meara who worked with Morikawa on his saw grip that he has adopted on the short-range putts.”
Hicks: “And that’s another huge quality that Morikawa has. He’s not afraid to ask players with more experience, he doesn’t have it all figured out. Collin Morikawa will do everything he can to make his game better.”
Azinger: “He did it the old-fashioned way – fairways and greens. In the bomb-and-gouge era, that’s not what Collin Morikawa is about. He proved that. We all think that this game has taken some sort of paradigm shift where you just have to crush. He didn’t do it that way.”
On Jordan Spieth (-13, 2nd place)
Spieth to reporter Cara Banks after the final round: “I hit shots that are still uncomfortable for me, getting over some scar tissue…I felt like I 100% played well enough to win this week, I felt that way and hadn’t felt that way in a major in quite a while. Under pressure, major championship pressure on the weekend, I felt my swing held up really nicely.”
Spieth to Banks on why he came up short: “It was just the finish yesterday. Had I finished par-par, I would have been in the final group. And if you’re in the final group, you feel like you really have control. Obviously those two strokes are important as well when it comes down to it. That was it.”
Azinger: “Jordan Spieth is back. There’s no doubt about that…that finish yesterday looms large. He was sitting pretty on 17 and 18 and bogeyed both of them, when it looked like he would birdie one of the two finishing holes yesterday. That was the difference.”
Hicks: “It appears that Spieth’s game – however sometimes unpredictable it is – is ready to take a crack at a fourth major next season.”
On Louis Oosthuizen (-11, T-3rd place)
Azinger on Oosthuizen’s final round: “Louis is just not feeling it today. It’s obvious. He has missed a lot of shots weak and to the right…his tempo, his rhythm, whatever it was was off. And he never caught a good break when he did have a miscue.”
Mackay prior to Oosthuizen’s bunker shot on 7th hole: “He’s got a nervy shot right here.”
Azinger on Oosthuizen’s skulled bunker shot on 7th hole: “Oh my gosh. That is just pressure – plain and simple.”
–NBC SPORTS–
