It looked like it would be a tightly contested tournament down the stretch at the Zozo Championship, with home-country favorite Hideki Matsuyama clinging to a slim lead over Americans Cameron Tringale and Brendan Steele, but then, Matsuyama kicked into overdrive, carding a total of three birdies on the back nine and a punctuating eagle on the final hole to win his seventh career Tour title — and first-ever Tour victory on home soil in Japan — by a whopping five shots.
Even a bogey on the par-4 17th couldn’t derail him, as Matsuyama was buoyed by the support from the Japanese gallery. On the par-5 18th, Matsuyama hit a 3-wood approach to 12 feet and drained the eagle putt — his second of the round — to finish with a bang.
The win marked Matsuyama’s first since his historic victory at the Masters in April.
“It was one of my biggest goals to win in front of the Japanese fans here in this country as well,” Matsuyama said after his round. “So happy that I’ll be able to accomplish that. Also, in 2019 Tiger won the Masters and went on to win the Zozo Championship, so I’m glad that I would be able to emulate that as well.”
Matsuyama acknowledged that despite the fact he didn’t have his “A” game this week, the immense support from the fans carried him through.
“I would rate my performance as 2 or 3,” Matsuyama said. “From the results perspective, it went about to 8, but I think it’s because all the energy that I was getting from the fans and I was very surprised how much energy I was feeding off of them.”
With seven career Tour wins on his resume, Matsuyama, 29, is closing in on a big milestone. K.J. Choi is the Asian player with the most Tour wins, with eight. Matsuyama is now only one victory away from that mark.
