AUGUSTA, Ga. Sixteen years ago, almost to this day, a 13-year-old Japanese boy woke up early one Monday morning to watch the Masters. He loved Tiger Woods – the very first time he watched the Masters, which Tiger won – and this morning Woods and Chris DiMarco walked to the 16th tee, separated by a single stroke.
It was around 7:30 in the morning, but the boy watched in amazement as Woods rolled in one of the greatest shots of all time, a curling iron that hung at the edge of the cup before falling to ground-breaking applause. The boy looks and cheers and dreams of one day playing in the Masters himself.
Six years later, his dream came true. And ten years later, the boy – who has now grown up and led the masters – stood on the 16th himself. The tournament of his dreams was in his hands, but his lead suddenly became fragile, and his dreams were about to evaporate.
When Hideki Matsuyama stepped down on the 11th Green Sunday, he led the Masters by five strokes, and he led Xander Schauffele by seven strokes. When Matsuyama stepped down from the 15th green a short while later, his lead on Schauffele was reduced to just two strokes. What once looked like a coronation was about to turn into a rock battle.
Schauffele played out of his mind, yes, he fired four straight birdies from the 12th to the 15th hole. But Matsuyama, who was so steady on Saturday, was rattling and rattling, sloppy and making poor choices around Rae’s Creek. He buried the ball at 12 in the far bunker, leading to a stray. He parked the ball at 13 in the rough high against the green, and a sure birdie hole became a mate. Then, the worst mistake of all: he shot at 15 on the green, went big instead of laying on, and his overcooked approach burst past the green and into the water outside. Similarly, a lead that Matsuyama held for more than 20 holes was another bad shot away from evaporating.
It is a short distance from the 15th green to the 16th tee. Barely enough time to write your score, and even less to get your head straight after getting such a body blow. The sun is shining obliquely, past the pine trees and the sixth green and the huge scoreboard that shows your successes and failures all in a row. The tea at 16 is in a small corner, surrounded by azaleas and overhanging trees. This is not a place to go into hiding. This is a place where you are exposed.
Matsuyama is one of the world’s most famous golfers, mainly because he is Japan’s most famous golfer. In pre-COVID days, dozens of Japanese media members travel to every tournament Matsuyama plays, watch him, photograph him, interview him, and ask every player they can find to comment on him.
It was a disturbing, claustrophobic, suffocating existence in the spotlight for Matsuyama, so much so that he hid the existence of a wife and child from the world in a few months in 2017.
But at this moment, there was absolutely nowhere to hide. He had to face his fears, live up to his dreams. He had to take the most important turn in his life.
However, Schauffele had the honor and opportunity to put Matsuyama under even more pressure. A shot in the middle of the green, even with the hidden Sunday pen placement – in the same spot where Tiger rolled the shot so many years ago – and Matsuyama’s collar would get even tighter.
But Schauffele misjudged the wind, and his 8-iron eventually rolled gently into the water next to the green.
“Hit a very good shot at 16,” he said afterwards. “I committed to that. I hit a perfect shot. We thought it was left to right. It was not left from right, and the rest is history. ”
This left Matsuyama on the tee with an unexpected rescue. Everything in his life, all his work, from being a four-year-old golf kid until the second nine Saturday in Augusta in the barnstorm – it all led to Matsuyama up to that point. All he had to do was beat it clean.
The ball flew. The patrons murmur. It was not exactly on target, but how far was it?
It does not seem like much. Matsuyama’s tee shot hit the right of the green, 41 feet from the pin. Safe. Smart. Tournament-winning.
“Unfortunately for Xander, he found the water with his knockdown,” Matsuyama said through a translator. “I played safe on the right side of the green at 16.”
Matsuyama would make it a little interesting in the final holes. He dropped both 16 and 18, and his mischievous putter returned to average after two days of unexpected astronomical achievements. But he held off Schauffele’s challenge at that moment, and that was enough to give him one last push for the green jacket.
“I knew he was going to be a world beater, and he was,” Kevin Na said shortly after the tournament ended. “It’s going to mean a lot to golf in Asia.”
Each Masters victory changes the life of the winner. This one can change the lives of thousands. The phenomenal popularity of Matsuyama in Japan means that children there have a hero to emulate, the first Japanese winner of the Masters, the first male Japanese big winner. Matsuyama mostly looked at baseball players – Yu Darvish, Shohei Otani, Kenta Maeda. But now he’s the one on the pedestal.
“Until now, we have not had a great champion in Japan, and maybe a lot of golfers or younger golfers also thought, well, maybe it’s an impossibility,” Matsuyama said. “But if I do, it will hopefully be an example to them that it is possible and that they can do it too if they think about it.”
Somewhere in Japan, there is a child – perhaps a whole bunch of kids – who got up early to watch Matsuyama, as Matsuyama Woods watched. And maybe, in 15 or 20 years from now, that child will be playing in majors, and they will look back on this moment as the one who lit the fire beneath them.
‘It’s exciting to think that a lot of young people in Japan are watching today. “Hopefully in five, ten years, when they get a little older, some of them will hopefully compete on the world stage,” Matsuyama said.
A warning with a smile: ‘But I still have many years left, so they will still have to compete against me. ‘
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Jay Busbee is an author of Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee or contact him at [email protected].
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