Weekly Recap: Matsuyama Makes a Move

All golfers on a professional tour face pressure. Heck, all professional athletes face pressure. But American golfers/athletes will never know the pressures faced by Japanese athletes competing at the highest levels. Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, for example, had Japanese media contingents following their every move in baseball, as they do these days for Shohei Ohtani. They are front-page news back home.

The same goes for Hideki Matsuyama.

Imagine what these athletes face when returning home to compete. That pressure is ratcheted up exponentially.

So the fact that Matsuyama was runner-up at the 2019 ZOZO event, just missed a bronze medal at the recent Tokyo Olympics and now on Sunday won the 2021 ZOZO Championship cannot be understated.

The final leaderboard will say that Matsuyama won by five strokes over Cameron Tringale and Brendan Steele, but this was no cakewalk; this tournament was tied with four holes to go before Matsuyama birdied and delivered a dagger eagle on 18 while Tringale bogeyed twice.

You could say the pressure was even greater and even more eyes were on Matsuyama since he did his homeland proud by becoming the first Japanese golfer to win the Masters back in April.

"First, I was the only Japanese player contending and was up on the leaderboard," Matsuyama told reporters in Japan. "To be honest, there were some pressures to deal with, but I'm glad I was able to convert that to positives."

It was the seventh career PGA Tour win for Matsuyama, who said one of his goals is to overtake K.J. Choi -- with eight -- for most Tour wins by an Asian golfer. This was his first in Japan.

"In this climate, it was not easy to host a PGA Tour tournament in Japan," he said, referring to the pandemic. "As a Japanese player, I'm really glad that I was able to win this tournament."

This was Matsuyama's second win this year and it moved him up to No. 12 in the world rankings, his highest standing in three years. Of course, he's been as high as No. 2 in the world. That was in 2017. It doesn't seem possible for him to reach those heights again, what with all the great talent ranked above him. But there is one way for one of the world's preeminent ball strikers and vastly underrated wedge players to do it.

We all know the way: putting.

"I did change my putting and I've been trying different things from a grip perspective as well trying to find something," Matsuyama said, "but it was really great that I was able to convert when it counted, when the important putts came, like 15th hole I was able to convert and that was really good."

Two weeks ago at the CJ Cup, Matsuyama ranked dead last in the 78-man field in putting. The Tour provided no putting stats for the ZOZO -- not even putting average, much less strokes-gained numbers -- but he definitely has a comfort level, even an advantage, on Japanese greens.

Matsuyama's putting has been getting worse in recent years, if that's possible. He was ranked 78th in SG: Putting in 2017-18, which is more than sufficient to complement the rest of his game. But since then, he has ranked 97th, 170th, 175th last season and an ugly 227th in the early going of the 2021-22 campaign.

It's impossible to minimize how big and how hard this win was for Matsuyama. Despite more familiarity with the Narashino Country Club course than others in the field -- and it was a very weak field -- the outside factors were enormous.

But as we saw the past few years on the PGA Tour, unless his putting improves – and it doesn't even have to improve a lot, just marginally -- there will continue to be a bunch of top-20s, an occasional top-10 and infrequent wins, making it hard for Matsuyama to return to the top 10 of the OWGR on a regular basis, much less the top five.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Cameron Tringale
Tringale has never won on Tour in 313 career starts. He won't find many chances better than this one, tied with four holes to go and only one man to beat. So he surely was disappointed he couldn't close the deal. Still, he has a lot to be happy about. He notched his fourth career runner-up and first in about five years. More notably, he's up to a career-best 54th in the world rankings, illustrating how well he is playing at age 34. Tringale had 11 top-25s last season. He doesn't miss many cuts. That win may never come, but Tringale has plenty of fantasy value.

Brendan Steele
Steele used to be one of the best ball strikers and worst putters. Now, at 38, he's no longer among the best ball strikers. But still a poor putter. So this result, on a course where you have to at least make some putts, was a surprise.  Steele arrived having missed five of his past eight cuts with only one cash inside the top-40. There are some courses where Steele has excelled – he's finished in the top-5 at both the Sony and the Honda each of the past two years – so he's a good play there, almost no matter the price. You should limit your Steele action to those tracks. Maybe one or two others. It's interesting to see that he's back inside the top-100, at 88th, based on his play just a few weeks all year.
 
Mackenzie Hughes
Science has told us that approach play is more relevant to success than putting. But there are no absolutes. Hughes often seems capable of a high finish thanks to elite putting and a better-than-average short game overall. He tied for fourth in Japan, his best finish in a full-point event since the 2020 Travelers. He also finished sixth at the Open Championship in July. Hughes is riding a stretch of 11 straight made cuts, and is back up to 48th in the world, which equals his career best. There are definitely many weeks to consider Hughes for your lineup.
 
Matt Wallace
Wallace is a one-time top-25 golfer who has been amid a horrible 2021 -- he fell to 73rd in the OWGR entering the ZOZO. But anyone who has been ranked 23rd in the world has to have a lot of talent. It was on display at Narashino with a tie for fourth. The Englishman is capable of some excellent weeks -- he was third at the Valero, sixth at the Wells Fargo, fourth at last year's Memorial -- but he obviously hasn't been consistent. Wallace was 14th at the Shriners, so this is two good events in a row, which is the first step toward consistency. He's now 66th in the OWGR, bidding to get inside the all-important top 50 by year's end.

Collin Morikawa
Morikawa was far behind after an opening 1-over 71 and never got back into things. He did rally to tie for seventh, which was good enough to move him to a career-high No. 2 in the world, overtaking Dustin Johnson. This was Morikawa's second straight top-10. It seems his mini-slump during the playoffs is over.

Takumi Kanaya
The former top-ranked amateur, still only 23, has been starring in Japan but hasn't been able to make much of a dent elsewhere. He tied for seventh, his first made cut in five starts on the PGA Tour in 2021. Two of the previous four were majors. Kanaya entered the week ranked 76th in the OWGR, so his career is well on its way. We'll have to see what he can do in tougher fields. That won't happen this week, though, when he takes advantage of his top-10 to get into the Bermuda Championship. He's now 68th in the OWGR.

Tommy Fleetwood
Fleetwood continues to crush it in Europe and, um, get crushed on the PGA Tour. He did finish tied for seventh, his best result in a Tour stroke-play event since the 2020 Honda. But as we've mentioned, the field was pretty weak. This doesn't on its own change our viewpoint or outlook on Fleetwood.

Branden Grace
Grace also tied for seventh and now is close to returning to the top-50 in the world (56th), after being about 150th earlier this year. The South African won in Puerto Rico earlier this year, but more impressive results have been fourth at the Memorial, second at the Wyndham and now the ZOZO. Grace is 33 but appears to have found a second wind and is fully fantasy relevant.

Chan Kim
Kim is a South Korean-born American playing in Japan who has spent a lot of time ranked in the top-100. But that's been based on his play in Japan; he had been struggling when in a PGA Tour event. He's starting to turn the tide, the latest evidence being a tie for 15th at the ZOZO. Kim also finished top-25 at the PGA back in May, made the cut at the Open Championship and was T35 at the WGC-Workday earlier this year. He's 31 and ranked 73rd in the OWGR, with a high of 61st.

K.H. Lee
Lee tied for 18th. Since the 3M Open in July nine starts ago, he's missed only one cut with six top-25s. Lee is up to 59th in the world, just off his career high of 57th. He's definitely someone to keep an eye on the way he's playing.

Xander Schauffele
Schauffele opened 70-74, was never in it and rallied a bit to tie for 28th. His success in limited-field, no-cut events is well documented. But it's also slipping. He was 18th at last week's CJ Cup, 39th at the WGC-Workday earlier this year and T17 at last year's ZOZO. Yes, he was also T5 at the Tour Championship, but that appears to be more related to his affinity for Eastlake than anything else.

Rickie Fowler
Fowler tied for 44th, never breaking par across the four rounds. Last week at the CJ Cup was great to see for Fowler fans (and golf fans), but any return to excellence will be not be immediate. Fowler slipped a few notches to 85th in the world.

Bill Haas
Ranked in the 700s, Haas was far and away the lowest-ranked guy at the ZOZO, in the field on a sponsor invite. He tied for 52nd, which did little to improve his ranking. Haas has no substantive fantasy value outside of occasionally being a sixth man to make a cut.

Will Zalatoris
Zalatoris tied for 54th. Narashino is a short course with numerous dog legs. It's not the type of track where Zalatoris does his best work. You can stick with Zalatoris at the bombers courses where he can let fly and display his length. But leave the tactical tracks to others.