Hideki Matsuyama’s victory at the St Jude Championship on Sunday was not without controversy, with the Japanese star at the centre of a potential rules violation during the front nine in Memphis.
Hideki Matsuyama is up to third in the FedEx Cup standings after his second victory of the year, with the Olympic bronze medalist finishing two shots clear of both Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele.
Funnily enough, there could hardly be more of a contrast between Matsuyama’s front and back nines in the final round at the St Jude Championship, with eight pars and one birdie coming before the turn. He would make just three pars on the back nine, with three birdies, two bogeys and one double bogey.
And some may wonder whether Matsuyama was thrown off his game after being approached by the chief referee early on in his back nine after a potential violation on the seventh hole.
The 32-year-old had seemingly repaired his pitchmark after his ball had rolled away from the green, which would have been a problem for the 2021 Masters champion had the mark been deemed to be on his line of play.
Chief referee explains Hideki Matsuyama conversation
As it turns out, chief referee Gary Young told Golf Channel after the round that he was satisfied that Matsuyama had not broken any rules with his actions, particularly after speaking to him during his round.
“Rule 8.1 is very specific about what a player can do as pertains to their line of sight. It came to our attention that Hideki may have done something on his line of play. He walked forward and his ball had pitched just off the green on his second shot at seven, it rolled down to the collection area and the video showed Hideki had walked forward and stepped down an irregularity of the surface, which turned out to be his pitch mark,” he said.
“At that point it was a question of whether it was actually on Hideki’s line of play. A couple of the video angles showed it was close, close enough to have that conversation with him. Unfortunately we had to do that mid round, it can affect a player but it could affect his strategy if he was going to get a two stroke penalty so I simply had to ask him the question ‘Hideki on that hole’ and he did recall the situation that he had walked forward. I asked him what exactly did he do and why did he do it. He just said it’s something he normally does if he has a pitch mark. He felt it was nowhere near his line of play and that’s why he stepped it down.
“Following the conversation with him I felt very comfortable that he felt it was well off his line of play and then we did get supporting video evidence from a different camera angle which shows where he played his shot and where the pitch mark was, now it was a good three foot away. Some people may go that’s pretty close but for that short of a shot and one of the best players in the world that’s a pretty tight area you are talking about so the committee felt very comfortable with the decision.”
Discussion did leader no favours at all
Certainly, Matsuyama’s round took a bit of a turn after the conversation, as he played the next four holes in four over par to open the door to the likes of Hovland and Schauffele.
Had he not made a birdie on 17 and 18, then perhaps he would have more complaints about what happened – particularly as he was clearly convinced that he had not done anything wrong on the seventh hole.
Thankfully, Matsuyama was still able to get across the line and secure his first ever play-off victory.
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