Hideki Matsuyama dishes on robbery, emergency caddie, low score

Hideki Matsuyama got robbed. He lost his wallet. And his coach. And his caddie.

But not his golf game.

Matsuyama spoke to the media on Thursday after his opening round at the FedEx St. Jude Championship and detailed what has amounted to a strange couple weeks. After earning a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, Matsuyama and his team — his caddie Shota Hayafuji and his coach Mikihito Kuromiya — had decided to spend one night in London. They were at dinner downtown, he said, when they noticed something was missing.

“We didn’t even know it happened. We were just having a friendly dinner, and Shota was the first one: ‘hey, where is my bag?’ Of course it was frustrating, but we really didn’t know it happened. It was just kind of all of a sudden.”

The perpetrator, Matsuyama said, “just took it and ran.”

A travel nightmare ensued.

“It was an unfortunate situation,” Matsuyama said. “Luckily I only lost my wallet, but Shota, my caddie, and [my] coach lost their passports, and we’re trying hard now to get their visas back in line, and hopefully we can join us as a team as soon as possible.”

There’s no good time for a stolen passport, and given the spot in the schedule, this is a particularly critical time for Matsuyama to be playing his best. After his third-place Olympic finish, he’s been hoping to carry some momentum into the final three events of the PGA Tour season; at No. 8 in the FedEx Cup standings he’s all but assured to make it to East Lake, where he’ll hope to challenge for the finale’s $25 million prize.

In the meantime, his coach and caddie returned to Japan, where they’ll work on replacement passports. Hayafuji, Matsuyama said, may make it to the U.S. in time for the Tour Championship. Kuromiya likely won’t.

But Matsuyama, still in possession of his passport, was still able to travel to Memphis, Tenn. to fill out this week’s 70-man field at TPC Southwind. And he was able to secure a last-minute caddie, Taiga Tabuchi, who typically caddies for Ryo Hisatsune. With Hisatsune out of the playoffs, this was supposed to be an off-week for Tabuchi. But when Matsuyama calls, you answer.

“He’s, like, the best Asian player, so I was excited to take the offer,” Tabuchi told the Commercial Appeal in an interview here. “I also caddie for Ryo Hisatsune, and he and Hideki have played practice rounds together, so I know Hideki very well. So, I think that’s why he offered me.”

The visual of Matsuyama without his longtime caddie (who you’d recognize from his iconic bow on the 18th green after Matsuyama’s Masters win) took some getting used to — even for him.

“Kind of reminded me of the first time Shota was on my bag. We kind of worked through a couple things. Really that was the main thing today is having teamwork with my caddie,” he said.

The rest of his game, on the other hand, looked quite familiar. After a rocky start — he found the water at the par-5 third hole to fall to one over par — he hit it well and had a terrific day on the greens, leading the field in strokes gained putting en route to a seven-birdie five-under 65 that puts him in second place after the first round, one shot behind leader Chris Kirk.

But the robbery, he says, he’s “forgotten completely.” How has he avoided the distraction? Matsuyama made it sound simple.

“My job is the same. It’s just play golf,” he said. “I talk to my coach every night on the phone. I’ve got a great caddie. Taiga did a great job today, so we’ll just see how it goes.”

Just one final mystery, then: with their wallets each stolen, how’d they pay for the bill at dinner?

“We’d already paid the check,” Matsuyama said.

In other words, they couldn’t even sneak a free meal out of the deal. But if Matsuyama keeps up this level of play, he’ll be able to buy a new wallet — and a nice check to tuck inside it.