(Ryan Kang//AP Photo) Matsuyama lifts trophy after claiming victory at the Genisis Invitational
If you took Hideki Matsuyama as the outright winner going into Sunday at the Genisis Invitational, I can only imagine how happy you are. Before his final round, Hideki was 6 shots back from the local kid, Patrick Cantlay. To even be in the conversation of winning, he knew he would have to start hot and stay hot.
Hideki went out and shot birdie-birdie-birdie to start his final round. He had his hot start, could he keep it up?
On a day where the average round score was about 70.5 (just barely under the par of 71), Hideki added six birdies to his initial three, along with a bogey-free scorecard. He scored an unbelievable 62, nine-under for the day to close the tournament at -17. This is the first final round 62 since Phil Rodgers did it in 1962 and the lowest final round in Genisis Invitational tournament history.
Below-average days by Will Zalatoris, Luke List, Patrick Cantlay, and Xander Schauffele left Matsuyama with a convincing victory, beating the rest of the field by three strokes.
With his victory, Matsuyama took home a $4 million cut of the purse, but the money wasn’t what made this win so significant for him. This being his ninth win on tour, he passes KJ Choi as the most successful Asian-born player in the history of Golf, “Reaching nine wins was one of my big goals, passing K.J. Choi.”
Matsuyama had been put through the wringer in the last season or so, fighting a back injury that threw him off his game. He struggled even to compete, and the 2021 Masters Champion battled to get back into competitive shape. When he tapped in his last putt on 18, he lightly pumped his first, a rare show of emotion for him. You could almost see the weight fall right off of his shoulders.
Cantlay, who entered the final day with a two-shot lead, had been struggling with a sickness all weekend. Cantlay couldn’t find fairways and was a par machine for most of the day, failing to add to his lead. Schauffele went birdie-eagle on 10 and 11 to get into the picture but followed that up with three straight bogeys. Zalatoris took the lead in the middle of the back-nine and went back and forth with Luke List for most of the day.
Matsuyama played probably the best golf I’ve ever seen to respond to the late afternoon five-way tie at the top of the leaderboard. He went birdie-birdie-birdie on 15, 16, and 17. If you get a second you should watch his finish, he was unconscious. Matsuyama jumped up to a three-shot lead and deflated the rest of the field.
The big story of the weekend came when Tiger Woods left his much-anticipated return to the PGA Tour with “Flu-Like Symptoms”. It was an unfortunately familiar scene as he was golf-carted off during the sixth hole of his second round.
Traditionally, Tiger hands over the trophy at the Genisis Invitational, but due to his sickness he was not there. Tiger tweeted his congratulations to Hideki, and one can imagine there was a classic Tiger Woods text waiting for him when he returned to his phone.
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