Collin Morikawa Reaches Top 50 Faster Than McIlroy, Spieth, DJ, Fowler

The American has made a superb start to life as a pro

Collin Morikawa Reaches Top 50 Faster Than McIlroy, Spieth, DJ, Fowler

Collin Morikawa may be overshadowed in terms of profile by his two newly-professional counterparts in Viktor Hovland and Matthew Wolff, but so far he looks like he may well be the best of the three.

The American has climbed inside the world's top 50 after a superb start to life as a pro.

Morikawa has achieved the feat in just 36 weeks, climbing from outside the world's top 1000 into the top 50 faster than the likes of Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler.

He is the fifth-fastest player since the inception of the Official World Golf Ranking (1986) to climb from outside of the top 1000 into the top 50, after Ben Curtis, Sean O'Hair, Tiger Woods and Patrick Cantlay.

Graph: Nosferatu @VC606/Twitter

Morikawa tees it up this week at the WGC-Mexico Championship ranked 49th in the world and, incredibly, is yet to miss a cut as a professional.

The 23-year-old turned pro last June and since then he has a win and five top-10s on the PGA Tour.

His first win came at the Barracuda Championship in July where he birdied four of the final five holes.

That was third-consecutive top-four finish after a T2nd to Matthew Wolff at the 3M Open and a T3rd at the John Deere Classic.

The Barracuda Championship is an opposite-field event so doesn't offer full FedEx Cup points, meaning he is not yet in the Masters.

However, if he can stay in the world's top 50 until the end of March, he'll be making his Augusta debut this year.

Morikawa, who attended the University of California, has played in 22 Official World Golf Ranking-sanctioned events in his life and has missed just one cut, which came at the Safeway Open back in 2016 at the age of 19.

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