Rex Hoggard suggests what makes ‘no sense’ about Hideki Matsuyama after his victory at The Sentry

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Hideki Matsuyama reminded everyone of his quality as the curtain was raised on the 2025 PGA Tour season, with the Japanese winning The Sentry after another noteworthy visit to Kapalua.

Hideki Matsuyama broke the PGA Tour record for the lowest score to par at The Sentry, with the 32-year-old posting a score of 35 under par at the Plantation Course.

There has been criticism of the Plantation Course. Davis Riley was the one player who was over par before he withdrew on Sunday. Meanwhile, a score of 20 under par was only good enough for a tie of 24th. However, that should take little away from Matsuyama.

He finished three shots clear of Collin Morikawa, as well as 10 clear of fourth place Jhonattan Vegas. So he still deserves enormous credit for being the player to make the most of the opportunities throughout the week in Maui.

What makes ‘no sense’ about Hideki Matsuyama as he wins The Sentry

Matsuyama is not someone who craves the limelight. He shows little emotions out on the golf course, and he does not give memorable interviews. And thus, he can become something of a forgotten man amongst the very best golfers on the planet.

But perhaps there is another reason for that. Speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Rex Hoggard suggested that Matsuyama’s underwhelming record in the sport’s four biggest events prevents him becoming one of the biggest superstars on the PGA Tour.

“The major record is something to look into. We want to give him his flowers because of what he did at the start of the season but the next step for him is winning the major championships,” he said.

“His win at the Masters was very special but you have such high expectations when you see this is the product, this is what he can do when everything is clicking. I’ll go back to the idea that health factors into this, I am not quite sure over the course of the career he has had a prolonged stretch where he has played an entire season or even just the four major championships with 100% complete health.

“It is also relative to the rest of the field. At the major championships you have the absolute best players going head to head. Yes, in the theory you had that this week, but you didn’t have Scottie Scheffler there and of course Bryson DeChambeau and the LIV guys are also not there.

“I think all those things factor into it. The bottom line is that he is probably the most inconsistent star player in the game at the moment. I don’t mean that as a knock. If you look at a player like Rory McIlroy, he can be inconsistent, but not along the lines that it seems like Hideki can. Because when you see how special he can be on a week like this it makes no sense that he couldn’t play better in the major championships and his record isn’t better.

“I will go back to last year’s Presidents Cup. He went two and three for the week. I think both us agreed that if the internationals had a shot, he had to be 4-1 or 5-0. He has never done it in those matches either and we have heard time and time again when you get in a team environment like that – whether it’s the Presidents Cup or the Ryder Cup – it kind of feels like Sunday at a major championship. And you can probably extrapolate something along those lines that he is missing a gear on Sunday at a major.”

Matsuyama’s major record

There are some interesting numbers which pop up when you look into Matsuyama’s major record. Of course, the headline stat is the one win – which came at the Masters in 2021.

He finished as a runner-up at the US Open in 2017, but those are his only podium finishes in the majors.

Matsuyama does however, have a hugely impressive record when it comes to making the cut, having made the weekend in 42 of his 47 starts. His last missed cut came at The Open Championship in 2019.

But clearly, making cuts should not represent a successful week for Matsuyama. His talent is obvious, and he is probably a player others fear when it seems that he has got some momentum behind him.

However, Matsuyama will probably be the first to admit that he has the capability to win even more often than he has done up until this stage of his career.