Collin Morikawa has withdrawn from the 2026 Players Championship due to a back injury. The No. 5 player in the world rankings and one of the hottest players on the PGA Tour to start the 2026 season suffered the injury on a practice swing on the 11th tee box on Thursday — his second hole of the tournament.
Morikawa took what looked like a pretty innocuous practice swing, but immediately grabbed at his lower back and called for the physio. After getting looked at and trying to stretch things out, he was ultimately forced to withdraw due to his back injury and left in a golf cart looking distraught.
“I felt fine in warm-up. Like nothing’s been any signs of back problems. And teed it up on 11, and took one practice swing, and I just knew it was gone,” Morikawa said. “Like I just had the feeling before when it’s happened. And I just, I can’t swing through it. Trust me, I would play if I could. It’s just the worst thing in the world.”
Morikawa is in the midst of a career resurgence, winning at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and notching top-7 finishes in each of the last two signature events as well. It’s been a welcome return to form for the two-time major winner, who came into Thursday’s first round at The Players as the third-favorite on the odds sheet, only trailing Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy — whose status for the week remains in question due to a back injury of his own suffered at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week.
Hopefully Morikawa’s back issue is something similar to McIlroy’s in that it’s a muscular issue and not something structural. McIlroy said he’s only battling pain and his ability to play was simply a matter of being able to tolerate the discomfort. Given Morikawa’s stellar play to start the season, this will hopefully only be a brief speed bump in his return to the top of the golf world and not an injury that will require a lengthy absence.
He seems to believe it’s just a muscle spasm issue, but it’s just not something he can play through. All he can do now is rest and recover and hope he can get back to full strength with time to get a full prep for the Masters next month.
“Yeah, I’ve had this stuff before, and been healthy all throughout the year, been moving weight and pushing, going fast,” Morikawa said “I don’t know, like, before I even took my practice swing, it’s like you had, like a weird, like deja vu thing. I took the practice swing and immediately knew, like, I just couldn’t get through impact. So at that point called over my trainer, and talked about it with my caddie Mark, and it just sucks. I don’t know how to put it in words.”
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