Collin Morikawa was spotted channeling his inner Fred Couples and playing without a glove during the opening round of the Travelers Championship.
The World No.4 was hitting mainly approach shots at TPC River Highlands without the usually standard glove on his left hand, which he was quizzed about afterwards.
Morikawa finished the day on three under, five off the lead, but said the experiment of playing without a glove seemed to be working.
The two-time Major champion explained that the move was in a bid to correct a consistent miss with his irons, so employed the no glove strategy mainly on approach shots.
It's the first time he's tried it in competition, and Morikawa described playing without a glove as "very, very weird, trust me".
Morikawa reported a positive feel on his approaches and ranked 15th in the field for Strokes Gained: Approach during the opening round.
"I feel like I’ve been putting good swings on it and they just keep missing in the same spot, so it’s not like my misses are all over the place. I just keep missing 30 feet left," Morikawa explained.
"When it comes down to it, our hands are what makes us such good athletes and such good golfers is that we have so much feel. For some reason when I’ve taken the glove off this week, it’s kind of worked. It’s just - problem is it’s really hot and it’s sweaty.
"But honestly, I started seeing shots that I was hitting, and even the bad ones were not good, but like that’s kind of where I expect them to be."
Look, we’re crazy. Honestly, we’re crazy
As a known striper of the ball with his irons, Morikawa still ranked highly in approach play even with his problems - and says that his latest "crazy" plan is more about the comfort of seeing the ball going where he expects it to.
"I was sitting on the range on Monday kind of working by myself, and I’ve done bare feet, so no shoes, and that normally works," said Morikawa of how he came up with the plan.
"It’s just trying a bunch of things. Look, we’re crazy. Honestly, we’re crazy because we try a lot of things, but that’s what makes us really good is we’re trying to find the little things.
"Even though last week I think I was top 5 or whatever in approach, it’s like, I know I can get better and feel more comfortable.
"Even though it ends up close, it’s a comfort factor of just being less stressed out there."
