Talking Golf With The Golf Guy-Season 5 Episode 19 With 2020 PGA Champion Colin Morikawa
in Blog, Podcasts by Jeff Waters

Talking Golf With The Golf Guy-Season 5 Episode 19 With 2020 PGA Champion Colin Morikawa

Major championship golf has returned to the American sports scene with a vengeance.

The 102nd PGA of America’s 2020 National Golf Championship was contested this last week at San Francisco’s Harding Park.

A municipal golf course that anyone can play, the course was built in 1925 by the same architects that constructed the nearby ultra-private and tony, Olympic Club. The site of many PGA tour events, including the United States Open Championship, the Olympic Club was the boyhood home of Johnny Miller and Ken Venturi, both Hall of fame golfers and major championship winners.

Harding Park was considered the poor man’s answer to the very private Olympic Club.

Because of the COVID-19 virus shut down and quarantine, this is the most extended time length between major golf tournaments since World War II, a span of 382 days.

As usual, the PGA championship brought with it the strongest field of the 2020 season.

95 out of the top 100 players in the world were entered, including all four of last year’s major-championship winners.

Harding Park, the site of this year’s contest, is a remarkable story in itself.

Long considered one of the most majestic public golf courses on the West Coast, it had fallen on hard times as of late.

The host of many local, PGA Tour, and professional events, the scenic and parkland golf course’s downfall was the result of municipal budget cuts that ransacked cities and towns in the 80 and ’90s.

The ultimate irony was, this excellent and scenic golf course was regulated to serve as the parking lot for the 1998 US Open held at nearby Olympic Club. A real tragedy for such a fantastic property.

The advance storylines ahead of this tournament were numerous and bombastic.

How would the public respond to a major without fans and media?

Would Brooks Koepka continue his winning streak in this Championship?

Can Tiger Woods aching and aging body continue his assault on the all-time greatest player record books?

Tony Finau

Can a Utah local favorite, Tony Finau, finally win a major after coming close so many times?

How will established stars like Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, and others perform after such an extended layoff between significant events?

And finally, how will Bryson DeChambeau, with his bulked-up body and brutal assault on driving distance, perform on the tree-lined, doglegged, precision shotmaking and relatively short Harding Park perform with his bombing everything out philosophy?

Bryson DeChambeau

The entire sporting world was waiting for golf’s return, and, for once in a great while, the quality of golf on display did not disappoint.

In the end, none of those advanced storylines was the narrative on a foggy, fresh, and relatively empty playground that was Harding Park.

The main story became one, not of the old guard and repeating champions, but of newcomers to the game of thrones, who had watched and waited for their chance to claim their shot at glory on golf’s biggest stage.

You see, it was just a little over one year ago, in May of 2019, that Colin Morikawa, our newest PGA champion,  was a senior at Cal State Berkley, not more than five miles from the golfing mecca that includes Harding Park.

Colin was finishing up his degree at the prestigious Haas School of Business, ranked the sixth-best business school in the world.

Colin Morikawa

Today, a little over one year later, he is not only the reigning PAC-12 golf champion, but he is also the 2020 PGA Champion, becoming the first player to win in his debut since Keegan Bradley in 2011. At age 23, he becomes just the fourth person to win the PGA Championship before the age of 24, joining Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy.

And, in these days of massive unemployment and economic insecurity, Morikawa, since turning professional fourteen short months ago, has won $6,898,941 in on-course winnings.

That computes to just under 500,000 a month since entering the workforce after he graduated college in May of last year.

Or just a little under $125,000 a week, which is just about the yearly average starting salary for a recent graduate of the Haas Business School at the University of California-Berkley.

Most folks would say he has made the right choice of professions.

I had a chance to sit in as Colin Morikawa talked about his latest victory as golf’s newest Major Champion.

Please listen as The Golf Guy, PGA Master Professional Jeff Waters describes all the action and has the reactions of the new champion.

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With over a half-century of engagement in the sport of Golf, Jeff Waters has become one of the most accomplished, experienced, and qualified Golf Professionals in the history of the PGA of America. He is a fully certified and trained Master Professional joining an exceedingly small and elite group of Professionals in the World to have achieved this prestigious title. Jeff holds University Degrees in Political Science, Teaching Minors in Economics and Finance, attended graduate school in Commercial Recreation, taught undergraduate classes at the University of Utah, and earned a master’s in business administration. With more than fifty years of experience and success in the business of Golf, Jeff spent ten years playing and competing in the game at all levels ten years laboring as an Assistant Golf Professional, acquiring the job-related skills, responsibilities, and training required for a career in golf, ten years fulfillment as a PGA Head Professional overseeing all aspects of the total golf course operation, three years’ service as Director of Player Development for Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation, administering and managing multiple golf course programs and activities, thirty-three years as a Golf Coach and Instructor at The Rocky Mountain Golf Academy, The University of Utah’s College of Health and the Granite Peaks Community College, teaching and tutoring the game. Additionally, Jeff has spent the last twenty-seven years as the Owner, President, and CEO of Rocky Mountain Golf Enterprises (RMG), a Utah-registered and licensed business offering golf-related services throughout the Western United States utilizing golf as the marketing tool. Finally, Jeff has performed on the national media stage for the past thirty-eight years as an Announcer, Author, Producer, and Talk Radio Host, communicating and sharing the joy, art, and skill that is the Game, Sport, and Challenge of Golf. Jeff, a well-known golf journalist, has been active in print media from an early age. His articles, commentary, and features regularly appear nationwide. He has authored two golf instruction books: “The Ten Commandments of Golf, Proven Principles That Make Your Golf Game Better,” and “The Short Game, the Transition from the Golf Course to the Putting Green.” Both are available as e-book downloads and on Amazon. Jeff penned his first short story while still in his teens and has since published 100’s of commentaries, essays, and instruction pieces in magazines, blogs, internet forums, and other platforms, including Golf Today, Utah Golf Magazine, Utah Golf News, Rocky Mountain Golfer, Fairways Magazine, Jackson Hole Golf News, Talking Golf with the Golf Guy, Voices in the Community.com, and Jeffgolfguy.com. He is the author of multiple books, stories, articles, posts, and evaluations of other writers’ publications. Jeff began his public communications career in High School and has had a constant presence in sports commentary throughout the years, providing play-by-play and color analysis at many diverse levels, including announcing football, baseball, and basketball games, along with local and national golf tournaments, while performing on other media platforms as well. Jeff was an early pioneer in Sports Radio, hosting a weekly talk show, “Talking Golf with the Golf Guy,” broadcasted and aired on various radio stations throughout the regional market, syndicated nationally on The Rocky Mountain Golf Network, and offered on most of the recognized podcast directories and streaming services. Over his extensive announcing career, Jeff has provided the vocal narration for hundreds of voice-overs, commercials, radio programming, sports interviews, tournament updates, blogs, podcasts, audiobooks, and videos, including the original voice work on the best-selling X-Box Links golf game. Jeff also contributed voice and commentary on the Centennial production, “One Hundred Years of the Utah State Amateur,” which is available on iTunes and Apple Music. As a member of the Golf Writers Association of America, Jeff has attended and reported on-site more than a hundred golf tournaments, including an assortment of Major Golf Championships, including The United States Open Championship, The Masters, the PGA Championship, and The Ryder Cup, along with other competitions on the PGA Tours annual tournament schedule. Jeff has produced, directed, and distributed numerous film and video projects as stand-alone presentations while incorporating them within his blog, website, syndicated podcasts, and national radio programming. All are available for review on YouTube. Known as “The Voice of Golf” and “The Golf Guy” throughout the Western United States, Jeff is regularly sought for advice and counsel and often speaks to groups on golf-related subjects. You may contact Jeff by email at jeffgolfguy@att.net and on his website at www.jeffgolfguy.com.