Heading into the final round, few would have predicted how Hideki Matsuyama would stumble across the line at the St Jude Championship, with the Olympic bronze medalist starting Sunday with a five shot lead on the field in Memphis.
Hideki Matsuyama seemed to have one hand on his first FedEx Cup play-off title already, with the 32-year-old posting rounds of 65, 64, 64 at the St Jude Championship, leaving him at 17 under par. The two previous events at TPC Southwind had been won with scores of 15 under par.
And the 2021 Masters champion looked to be on course to stroll across the line as he made nine pars and two birdies in his first 11 holes on Sunday. However, the 12th hole would mark the start of the real drama for Matsuyama.
Matsuyama was spoken to by the chief referee about a potential rules violation, and he went on to make two bogeys and a double in his next four holes to open the door to the likes of Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland. Matsuyama would face no penalty for what had happened back on seven.
Smylie Kaufman surprised by what Hideki Matsuyama did before final round of St Jude Championship
Two birdies on the final two holes would hand him the title after all, but it was certainly not the procession many would have expected. And Smylie Kaufman thinks that Matsuyama did not entirely help himself ahead of the final round.
Speaking on The Smylie Show, Kaufman noted that Matsuyama was leading the field for strokes gained for putting across the first three rounds, but still decided to make a change before Sunday – something Kaufman could not quite understand.
“That was the story going in on Sunday, right, we have Hideki Matsuyama, who’s been an inconsistent putter. When he gets a hot putter, watch out because his iron game is so good. What I noticed though with Hideki was on Sunday, and a lot of people if you were watching our early coverage, you would have seen that Hideki had a totally different putter than the putter he was using the first three days, warming up with it,” he said.
“So you’re thinking to yourself, alright, maybe he’s just trying to give everybody a chance, that was something that came to my mind, or maybe this is something which is his practice putter, because it looked like his old gamer that he used to use, and maybe he just didn’t feel comfortable with that putter. But he was first in putting for the week, so from my perspective, it’s like this is weird. So my alarm bells are already sounding for the group I was in, for Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland.
“These guys are going to be in it at the end, because you’ve got a guy changing putters on the practice greens. He’s the ultimate tinkerer, he’ll have six or seven clubs behind him on a Saturday or Sunday, doesn’t matter, he’ll always have tons of different things on the putting green, on the driving range, it’s not unheard of for Hideki to do something like this, but it just was very odd.”
Where Olympic bronze medalist ranks on the PGA Tour this season
As Kaufman notes, Matsuyama’s putting statistics are not the strongest, which makes his decision to make the change all the more surprising.
He is now ranked 106th on the PGA Tour this season for strokes gained with the flat stick, so it seems a huge achievement that he was out in front for the opening three rounds in Memphis.
Perhaps he felt that he had enough of a lead that he could afford to switch back to something which was more comfortable for him, or he may have wondered whether he could perform even better with a different putter.
Thankfully, the decision did not end up costing Matsuyama, who now sits third in the FedEx Cup standings with two events left. But it certainly does not tell the story of someone who is entirely sure of their game.
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