NORTON, Mass. — Collin Morikawa put his own kind of stamp on win­ning his first major at the PGA Championship.

He was unpack­ing from his week at Hard­ing Park and was about to put away the two pairs of golf shoes he wore for the week. That’s when the 23-year-old Cal­i­forn­ian decid­ed it was wor­thy of a memento.

“I nev­er real­ly keep a ball or what­ev­er for cer­tain tour­na­ments,” Morikawa said Tues­day. “But I wrote ’2020 PGA Cham­pi­onship’ on the side of my shoes and just want to have some­thing to remem­ber that. I was talk­ing to my girl­friend and you know, this is my first major. And I’m always going to remem­ber it. I’m going to remem­ber every sin­gle win, but just hav­ing that first major I’m going to remem­ber a lit­tle more.”

Those are just the shoes. The big ques­tion is what about the driver?

It was his tee shot on the 294-yard 16th hole to 7 feet for eagle that sent him to a two-shot vic­to­ry, a shot that will be remem­bered as one of the best dri­ves in major cham­pi­onship his­to­ry. Some majors, like the Mas­ters and U.S. Open, will ask cham­pi­ons to donate a club that was cen­tral to winning.

“The dri­ver, who knows when Tay­lor­Made is going to come out with a new one and I’ve got to switch,” Morikawa said. “I’ll prob­a­bly just mark it with a lit­tle ‘PGA Cham­pi­onship,’ maybe a Sharpie on the head to remem­ber it.”

And then?

“Prob­a­bly just stick in my oth­er bags at home when I start col­lect­ing them and they start pil­ing up,” he said. “I real­ly don’t know.”

The shoes already have their own spot. He said he has a big cab­i­net of shoes in his Las Vegas garage. Morikawa said he threw them in there with all his oth­er shoes, “sit­ting in 110-degree heat.”

There was one oth­er memen­to from Hard­ing Park he didn’t want.

Tay­lor­Made had spe­cial golf bags for its staff play­ers, trimmed in black and orange for a San Fran­cis­co Giants theme. Morikawa grew up in the Los Ange­les area. The bag went to his caddie.

“Promised him at the begin­ning of the week that’s it’s his, and it’s still going to be his,” Morikawa said. “I do not want that in my house, being a Dodgers fan.”

RAHM’S UNCERTAIN AUTUMN

Jon Rahm won twice toward the end of last year on the Euro­pean Tour, titles that he might not be able to defend.

One of them was the Span­ish Open, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Oct. 15–18, but no longer on the sched­ule. The oth­er is the DP World Tour Cham­pi­onship in Dubai, which has been pushed back three weeks to Dec. 10–13.

Still lin­ger­ing are con­cerns with trav­el amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Right now, I just don’t see myself going to Europe,” Rahm said Tues­day. “It’s rough fly­ing pub­lic, hav­ing to have a flight, a mask on for 10-plus hours, just doesn’t sound very good to me. Doesn’t sound healthy at all, so I don’t know what I’m going to be doing.”

It’s about more than golf. Rahm isn’t sure he’ll be able to trav­el to Spain to see his fam­i­ly at Christmas.

“If it comes between going to Spain and see­ing my fam­i­ly and play­ing a golf tour­na­ment, I’m not play­ing golf,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”

That could cre­ate oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties. Rahm didn’t start his PGA Tour sea­son until Jan­u­ary at the Sen­try Tour­na­ment of Cham­pi­ons in Maui. He typ­i­cal­ly plays the Euro­pean Tour in the fall and has not played any of the PGA Tour’s events in Asia.

The CJ Cup is like­ly head­ed from South Korea to Las Vegas for this year because of the pan­dem­ic, and that’s appeal­ing to Rahm. He played col­lege golf at Ari­zona State and lives in Scotts­dale, Arizona.

“A short flight, a tour­na­ment I want­ed to play, and it wouldn’t be bad to get some FedEx Cup points before show­ing up in Maui and being already a thou­sand points behind,” he said.

POSTSEASON STREAK

Adam Scott won his first PGA Tour event at the TPC Boston in 2003 as a spon­sor exemp­tion to the Deutsche Bank Cham­pi­onship. Return­ing this year brings good vibes, along with extend­ing a streak.

Scott is among nine play­ers who have qual­i­fied for the FedEx Cup play­offs every year since they began in 2007. Also on that short list are Phil Mick­el­son, Justin Rose, Bub­ba Wat­son, Matt Kuchar, Charles How­ell III, Ryan Moore, Brandt Snedek­er and Charley Hoffman.

Rose and Hoff­man were in dan­ger of miss­ing out. Hoff­man was No. 116 — only the top 125 qual­i­fy for the post­sea­son — when he tied for sev­enth at Muir­field Vil­lage for the Work­day Char­i­ty Open. Rose was at No. 121 when he fin­ished ninth two weeks ago at the PGA Championship.

Mick­el­son, mean­while, is the only play­er to have reached the BMW Cham­pi­onship for the top 70 play­ers every year. That streak is in jeop­ardy as Mick­el­son comes into The North­ern Trust at No. 67. The BMW Cham­pi­onship is next week at Olympia Fields south of Chicago.

NEW MEMBERS

Erik van Rooyen of South Africa and Will Gor­don earned enough FedEx Cup points to be the equiv­a­lent of at least No. 125. That didn’t get them a spot in the FedEx Cup play­offs, but they now are full PGA Tour mem­bers for next season.

Van Rooyen, who played col­lege golf at Min­neso­ta and lives in south Flori­da, earned the bulk of his points from a tie for third in the Mex­i­co Cham­pi­onship, two weeks before golf shut down because of the pandemic.

Gor­don tied for 10th at Sea Island at the end of last year, and then pushed over the top with his tie for third at the Trav­el­ers Cham­pi­onship, where he closed with a 64.

Play­ers could only improve their sta­tus this year because of the pan­dem­ic-short­ened sea­son. That means those who fell out of the top 125 still have the same sta­tus they start­ed the sea­son with last Sep­tem­ber. The tour left room for play­ers who worked their way toward bet­ter sta­tus. That list includes Har­ris Eng­lish, who had con­di­tion­al sta­tus a year ago and now is No. 28 going into the postseason.

EUROPEAN SHUFFLE

The recon­fig­ured sched­ule means the Irish Open is mov­ing from May to Sept. 24–27, the date that pre­vi­ous­ly was occu­pied by the Ryder Cup before it was post­poned until next year.

It’s more than a date change. The Irish Open is mov­ing this year from Mount Juli­et in Ire­land to Gal­go­rm in North­ern Ire­land, where it will be under the same trav­el guide­lines as the “UK Swing” events. How­ev­er, the prize fund with­out hav­ing spec­ta­tors now is 1.25 mil­lion euros ($1.49 mil­lion), mean­ing the Irish Open will not have “Rolex Series” sta­tus this year.

Mean­while, the Euro­pean Tour con­firmed that the Scot­tish Open and the BMW PGA Cham­pi­onship at Went­worth will be held in con­sec­u­tive weeks in Octo­ber imme­di­ate­ly after the Irish Open.

DIVOTS

Jim Her­man became the fifth play­er out­side the top 200 in the world to win a PGA Tour event this sea­son, exclud­ing the oppo­site-field events. … Sam Hors­field of Eng­land is on a roller coast­er of form. In his last three events on the Euro­pean Tour, he won, missed the cut and won again. … Bil­ly Horschel (No. 69 in 2014) and Rory McIl­roy (No. 36 in 2016) are the only FedEx Cup cham­pi­ons to have start­ed the FedEx Cup play­offs out of the top 25. … Scot­tie Schef­fler and Vik­tor Hov­land are among eight PGA Tour rook­ies who qual­i­fied for the post­sea­son. … Of the top 20 in the FedEx Cup stand­ings, Xan­der Schauf­fele, Abra­ham Ancer and Hide­ki Mat­suya­ma are the only ones with­out a vic­to­ry this season.

STAT OF THE WEEK

Had the cal­en­dar not been altered by the pan­dem­ic, a play­er win­ning all four majors and all four World Golf Cham­pi­onships would have earned $515,000 more than the $15 mil­lion that goes to the FedEx Cup champion.

FINAL WORD

“This didn’t just hap­pen by me win­ning the Bar­racu­da and then not remem­ber­ing how to play golf from there. It’s been a lot of work, a lot of prac­tice and improve­ments.” — Collin Morikawa on his math­e­mat­i­cal chance to reach No. 1 in the world in just 15 months as a pro.