Collin Morikawa’s caddie search leads him to legendary, major-winning looper

Collin Morikawa will know it when he feels it.

The two-time major champion has been searching for a new caddie since he parted with long-time looper J.J. Jakovac in late April. Morikawa worked with Joe Greiner for five events before splitting with him. Morikawa had an old college teammate caddie for him at the Rocket Classic, but used his off week to find a two-week solution, with the potential for it to become a long-term fit, in legendary caddie Billy Foster.

On Monday, the DP World Tour tweeted a video of Morikawa and Foster on the range at the 2025 Genesis Scottish Open. Bunkered.com’s Ben Parsons reported that Morikawa and Foster will work together for the Scottish Open and next week’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush.

Foster has caddied for Seve Ballesteros, Darren Clarke, Thomas Bjorn and Matt Fitzpatrick, who won the 2022 U.S. Open with Foster on the bag.

Morikawa’s season-long search hasn’t just been confined to his caddies. He has been tinkering with different aspects of his game as he looks for the right swing feel to get him back to the winner’s circle.

At the Travelers Championship, Morikawa experimented with hitting a number of his shots without a glove.

“When it comes down to it, our hands are what makes us such good athletes and such good golfers [because] we have so much feel,” Morikawa said at the Travelers. “For some reason, when I’ve taken the glove off this week, it’s kind of worked.

“I’ve done bare feet, so no shoes, and that normally works, but I don’t think I’m going to do that. 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.”

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At the Rocket Classic, Morikawa made two changes after a scruffy first round. He switched to a one-of-one putter that TaylorMade crafted for him during the offseason. Morikawa also stuck to hitting more straight balls and slight draws in Detroit instead of only hitting his preferred cut. Morikawa lost over three strokes on approach at the Travelers, but his iron game picked back up in Detroit thanks to that tweak.

“I’m playing a slightly different shot than I would ideally like, but there comes a point where I just have to stop fighting it and I just have to go out and play golf,” Morikawa said at the Rocket Classic. “It’s frustrating because some of the shots that I will have, I know what I can do, but they’re just not performing that way. So I have to kind of cater to the shots I have, which is a straight ball to a two-yard draw to a two-yard fade. It’s very tight dispersions, which I don’t mind. I have to think a little bit differently about how I approach them.”

As for the caddie situation, when Morikawa parted with Jakovac, he said he wanted to work on taking more ownership of his game to get back to playing the game the way he used to, instead of just focusing on the numbers on a scorecard and yardages.

“A few weeks ago, I might have just stepped up and hit a pitching wedge,” Morikawa said in May at the Truist Championship after his first round with Greiner on the bag. “Where today I’m really trying to describe the shot in as much detail, and that’s how I’ve always played. It’s just going back to that.”

When he fired Greiner after the Travelers Championship, Morikawa admitted that he knew the search for his next permanent looper would take time. He knows what he’s looking for but isn’t sure how to find it. There was always going to be trial and error.

“I think Joe is an amazing caddie, but I think just the way we kind of saw things, or just day to day, how we kind of went about it, we were just a little bit on a different page. That doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong, but for me it just didn’t feel right,” Morikawa said at the Rocket Classic.

“I have to explore other options. I knew that coming in,” Morikawa said. “I knew it was going to be a great start and it was going to be a fun thing for me to test out that I knew I put myself in, but at the end of the day you don’t know how you’re going to be, because we spend more time with them than anyone else in the world honestly. I spend more time with them than my wife sometimes. It’s a true relationship.”

Next up is Billy Foster, who will try to help Morikawa win for the first time since the 2023 Zozo Championship. If the feeling is right, the trial balloon could last longer. If not, Morikawa will go back to the drawing board as he searches for a way to tap into the formative parts of his golfing DNA. New caddie, putter modeled after his college flat stick, a different ball flight, glove or no glove.

Morikawa is deep in the endless search that golf often presents. He’s close. He has been all year. Perhaps Foster will be what brings it all together this weekend in Scotland … or next with a Claret Jug on the line.