Collin Morikawa’s win at the 2026 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am will be remembered less as a simple drought-ender and more as a study in how a top player handles layered pressure. He closed with a 5-under 67 at Pebble Beach Golf Links to reach 22-under 266 and win by one shot, his seventh PGA Tour title and his first since 2023.  The bare facts are impressive enough, but the context around them, namely the Saturday surge, the storm threat, and the long waits coming down the stretch, is what turns this into a genuine inflection point in his career.

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The entire week flipped on Saturday, when Morikawa produced a 10-under 62, his best PGA Tour round in over a year and one of the most dominant ball‑striking displays Pebble has seen in the ShotLink era.  Golfweek reported that he gained more than six strokes on the field with his approach play, the best Strokes Gained: Approach performance ever recorded at this event and one of the top figures on tour since 2004.  That round didn’t just vault him into contention; it reset the psychology of Sunday. Instead of a player still searching for a way out of a 28‑month winless spell, Morikawa arrived in the final round as the one everyone else had to chase.

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The forecast became the invisible opponent. With a strong system expected to roll in, officials moved up final‑round tee times into a tight early‑morning window and sent threesomes off split tees, explicitly to beat increasing winds and afternoon rain on the Monterey Peninsula.  That decision turned Sunday into a race against weather as much as against Min Woo Lee and Sepp Straka, who would ultimately finish one shot behind at 21-under.  Pebble is already brutally exposed when the wind blows; when players know conditions may worsen mid‑round, every choice—whether to attack a flag on 7 or take on the ocean on 18—carries extra risk in the mind as well as on the card.

Morikawa’s response to that environment was revealing. He did wobble: a bogey on the par‑3 17th dropped him back into a tie, exactly the kind of late slip that has haunted him during this winless stretch.  Then came a long wait on the 18th fairway, as the group ahead, including Jacob Bridgeman, needed extra time to finish, forcing Morikawa to cool his heels before the shot that would decide the tournament.  According to multiple sources, he coped by moving, chatting, and even joking with his wife about baby names as they await their first child; he used a conscious tactic to diffuse tension rather than tighten it.  When play finally cleared, he launched a 4‑iron from around 230–235 yards, starting it out toward the ocean wall and trusting the wind to bring it back, then took two putts from just off the green for a closing birdie and the title.

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Other storylines tried to pull focus in the golf world. Travis Kelce, playing in the amateur field, accidentally struck a female spectator in the head with an errant drive on the 18th, later identified as Edenne Flinn, immediately apologizing and signing memorabilia as she received medical attention.  Akshay Bhatia, who led after 54 holes, again found himself under the microscope for his putting technique and for failing to convert a final‑round lead.  However, those moments ultimately sat on the tournament’s edge. The central story at Pebble this year is that, in a week shaped by weather anxiety and narrative baggage, Collin Morikawa proved his game and temperament are still built for the sharpest questions the PGA Tour can ask.