Morikawa’s Pebble Beach reset: borrowed putter, cold wind, and one last 4-iron
Pebble asked its usual questions: the tiny greens, awkward lies, late-day poa, and Collin Morikawa finally answered, with a closing birdie on 18 to end a long drought.
The headline
Collin Morikawa (tipped up by us in our preview) won the 2026 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at -22, closing with a 67 and a birdie on the 72nd hole to edge Min Woo Lee and Sepp Straka by one.
This didn’t feel like a Sunday stroll. It felt like a minor 2027 US Open rehearsal with the wind turned up, but that leads to a major problem, which we cover later.
At one point, six players shared the lead in a final round that kept flicking between “go low” and “just survive”. The finishing stretch was proper Pebble drama: Morikawa birdied 15 and 16 to grab control, bogeyed the exposed par-3 17th when the ocean lurked left, then had to win it on 18 anyway.
Top 10 leaderboard (incl. ties)
1 Collin Morikawa -22 266
T2 Min Woo Lee -21 267
T2 Sepp Straka -21 267
T4 Scottie Scheffler -20 268
T4 Tommy Fleetwood -20 268
T6 Sam Burns -19 269
T6 Akshay Bhatia -19 269
T8 Ryo Hisatsune -18 270
T8 Shane Lowry -18 270
T8 Nico Echavarria -18 270
T8 Jake Knapp -18 270
T8 Jacob Bridgeman -18 270
T8 Hideki Matsuyama -18 270How Morikawa actually won it
The lasting image is the wait on 18, Morikawa cooling off on the fairway while the group ahead navigated chaos. Jacob Bridgeman tried to play from the beach, and the ball ended up in the ocean, stretching the delay to around 20 minutes before Morikawa could finally hit his second.
Then Morikawa did the thing that has always made him a closer on hard courses: he committed to a shot shape, started a 4-iron over the ocean wall, let the wind bring it back, and gave himself the chance. Two putts later, drought over.
That’s the takeaway for the season, not just the week. Morikawa didn’t win by guessing. He won by leaning into his identity, precise irons, controlled ball-flight, and emotional discipline when the finish turned messy.
Scheffler’s charge was absurd, and it nearly worked
Scottie Scheffler came from eight back to shoot a 63 on Sunday, including three eagles, and he even tied the lead with an eagle on 18 before Morikawa’s final birdie answered.
It was the familiar Scheffler script: not perfect early in the week, then increasingly inevitable once the ball-striking clicks. He didn’t win, but this was another reminder that “out of position” doesn’t exist for him in no-cut, four-round events. You have to beat him twice: once with scoring, and once with nerve, knowing he is in the clubhouse.
The bizarre stuff: Burns on 18, and the beach becoming a hazard
Pebble always produces at least one sequence that looks like video-game golf.
Sam Burns’ 18th hole on Sunday was the kind of decision-making that makes you blink and check the leaderboard again. He needed an eagle to tie, yet he played the hole as if par were the target. Pebble’s 18th gives you options, but when you’re chasing, you have to pick a line that at least keeps the eagle door open. Burns didn’t. The strategy screamed “protect”, not “push”.
The moment that summed it up: the iron off the tee, shoved way right into the bunkers. That’s the miss you can live with if you’re laying up by design, but not when the job is two under on the hole. Once he’d found sand on the wrong side, the hole effectively stopped being a realistic eagle chance. In a Sunday finish where others were taking on risk to win it, Burns’ 18th felt like he’d misread the urgency entirely.
Sunday also gave us this even stranger route down the 18th: Bridgeman literally working out how to play from the beach on 18, only for it to end in the ocean, delaying the deciding shots and underlining how quickly Pebble turns from postcard to punishment.
Cue Johnson Wagner, wet-suit and surfboard ready to re-enact the shots on the beach.
McIlroy’s quiet comeback week
Rory McIlroy’s headline isn’t contention, but it matters: T14 at -17 in his first start of 2026, closing with a bogey-free 64 to climb the board.
That’s the kind of week that sets up a run. Not fireworks, but signs of rhythm: tidy scoring, no panic, and enough birdies late to leave California feeling productive rather than rusty.
Pebble Beach has a modern problem
Pebble remains iconic, but the gap between what the course was and what the modern game is gets louder every year.
The scoreline tells you why. Pebble played as a par 72 at 6,989 yards, and the winning number still reached -22 in a Signature field. The defence is still real, tiny greens, run-offs, poa, but length is no longer a meaningful deterrent. Too many players can hit short irons into holes that once demanded mid-irons, and when the wind eases even slightly, “position golf” becomes “wedge golf”.
The bigger concern is the 2027 U.S. Open. The USGA is coming back to Pebble Beach on June 14–20, 2027 (championship week), and the “overpower” question won’t go away just because the title changes. If Pebble gets firm and nasty, it’s still a brute, but the setup has to be perfect: firmer greens, sharper hole locations, and rough that actually changes decisions. If it rains, or if the wind doesn’t show up, the risk is a U.S. Open that feels like a birdie contest on a course that’s meant to feel like survival.
Profit & Loss — AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
- E/W terms: 1/5 odds, Top 10 places, Stakes shown are total outlay per bet
Pick Odds Bet Type Finish Stake Return P/L
Xander Schauffele 22/1 £1 E/W (Top 10) T19 £2.00 £0.00 -£2.00
Collin Morikawa 40/1 £1 E/W (Top 10) WIN £2.00 £50.00 +£48.00
Corey Conners 66/1 £1 E/W (Top 10) T70 £2.00 £0.00 -£2.00
Ryan Fox 110/1 £1 E/W (Top 10) T24 £2.00 £0.00 -£2.00
Total staked: £8.00
Total returned: £50.00
Net P/L: +£42.00
Running season P/L:
Prior (after Phoenix): -£10.60
This week (Pebble): +£42.00
Season total: +£31.40