The Sentry Tournament of Champions final round between Jon Rahm and Collin Morikawa was not for the weak-hearted. It was an absolutely thrilling and dramatic finale that brought fans to the edge of their seats.
Spanish golfer Jon Rahm collected his first title of the 2023 season by winning the Sentry Tournament of Champions. However, his journey to victory was full of twists and turns.
Collin Morikawa had a six-stroke lead going into the final round and was expected to comfortably wrap up the contest. However, he faultered midway and hit three bad swings that cost him the title. He eventually finished in the runners-up position.
FanDuel Sportsbook maintained the live odds for the final round at the Kapalua Plantation Course and the numbers went crazy. Initially, the figures supported Collin Morikawa but they slowly started turning in Rahm's favor as the round unfolded.
Jon Rahm v/s Collin Morikawa: Fans react to the live odds
The PGA Tour posted a recap of the live odds during the final round between Jon Rahm and Collin Morikawa at the recently concluded Tournament of Champions. Fans reacted to the drastic shift in the numbers as Morikawa blew an incredible lead.
One fan said that they had stopped watching the round as they believed Morikawa had it in the bag.
"I stopped watching thinking Morikawa had it in the bag."
Other fans debated whether it was Rahm's incredible skill or Morikawa's brutal choke that led to Rahm winning the title.
"Rahm played amazing but Morokowa pulled the ultimate choke. You don’t blow leads like that as a pro."
"Someone said Collin didn’t choke and rahm simply won"
One user stated that Jon Rahm had made people a lot of money.
"Rahm made some people a lot of money it looked like"
Another called Morikawa's terrible collapse the "choke of the century."
"Choke of the century"
One fan compared Morikawa to former Australian golfer Greg Norman, who had an unfortunate reputation for choking in tournaments.
"@collin_morikawa is the modern day @shark_gregnorman . He just chokes."
"Sadness. I don’t know" - Collin Morikawa on the collapse
Collin Morikawa was visibly upset after his performance at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. He squandered an easy win in the final due to three very expensive bad swings. He said:
"Sadness. I don’t know. It sucks. You work so hard and you give yourself these opportunities and just bad timing on bad shots and it kind of added up really quickly."
Unfortunately, this wasn't Morikawa's first experience of blowing a sizable lead as the American lost the 2021 Hero World Challenge despite having a five-shot lead in the final round. Viktor Hovland won the tournament in 2021 after Morikawa's collapse.
However, Morikawa believes the two situations were different as he was not feeling good about his game at all during the Hero World Challenge.
"Hero started off bad, never found it, never felt good, just bad. Today it felt fine. Just made three poor swings, really, at the wrong times. It’s never a good time to put a poor swing on it, but sometimes it works out and these never worked out."