Collin Morikawa withdrew from the 2026 Texas Open on Tuesday morning, meaning he will not have played any competitive golf between suffering his back injury on his second hole at The Players and the Masters.
Morikawa was among the many stars planning to tee it up at TPC San Antonio this week as a way to sharpen their game ahead of the first major championship of the season, but will now head to Augusta National Golf Club without any tournament reps.
The hope is that another week off will allow Morikawa to be fully ready to play at a high level at the Masters, but as we’ve seen from a number of stars this season, it’s extremely difficult to regain your best form in the first start after returning from an injury.
Rory McIlroy is the most recent example of a player who suffered a seemingly similar back injury to Morikawa at Bay Hill. While he was able to return to play a week later at The Players, he was clearly not at his best and finished T46 in his attempt at a title defense. Justin Thomas had offseason back surgery and missed the cut at Bay Hill in his first start of the season.
That’s the challenge facing Morikawa, which is a shame given he was playing the best golf we’ve seen from him in a few years prior to the injury at The Players. Morikawa picked up his first win since 2023 at Pebble Beach and backed that up with a T7 at the Genesis and a fifth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational to verify that return to form.
Now he’s got to rebound from the ever-tricky back injury and will have to manage that around one of the most physically demanding walks of the year at Augusta National.
Morikawa is currently listed at 22-1 to win the Masters at DraftKings — the eighth-best odds in the field. He won’t be alone in top stars coming into Augusta National without a lot of recent reps. The two leading favorites, Scottie Scheffler and McIlroy, haven’t played a PGA Tour event since The Players. Scheffler withdrew from last week’s Houston Open as he and his wife Meredith awaited the birth of their second child.
The hope is some additional time off helps them be refreshed for the first major of the season, but the ever-present debate of rest vs. rust will be on full display at the Masters with some of the biggest stars not playing in nearly a month.