Youngsters Matsuyama, Spieth in contention

Two of golf’s young phenoms put themselves in position yesterday to challenge for the title at the Memorial Tournament.

Texan Jordan Spieth, 20, already ranked 10th in the world, is familiar to most golf fans. He shot a 5-under-par 67 to get to four shots of leader Bubba Watson, who outdueled him in the stretch drive at the Masters.

Fewer fans are familiar with 22-year-old Hideki Matsuyama from Japan. He is even closer to the Memorial lead.

Matsuyama rebounded from consecutive bogeys early on the back nine with two late birdies, including one on No. 18, to shoot a 69. He’s alone in third place at 10 under, two shots behind Watson.

Matsuyama and Spieth were paired together at last year’s U.S. Open. Career trajectories in pro golf can be fickle, but both players show every sign of being potential rivals for the foreseeable future.

Matsuyama won four tournaments to become the leading money winner on the Japan Tour in 2013. He is ranked 24th in the world despite missing time over the winter because of a wrist injury.

“Very, very impressive,” Spieth said of Matsuyama. “More people would know about him if he wasn’t hurt for that short period of time. He’ll make some noise, I’m sure, for a number of years here.”

Matsuyama’s results have steadily improved over the past month. He finished 10th at the Crowne Plaza Invitational last week, and is poised to do even better here.

“I’m always doing my best to prepare for that first win and working hard toward it,” Matsuyama said through a translator. “You never know when it’s going to come. All I can do is give it my best shot.”

Matsuyama fell to 8 under after bogeys on Nos. 11 and 12. But he said he didn’t get rattled.

“There was never a point when I felt the round was going to go south,” he said.

He birdied the par-5 15th — his eagle putt lipped out — and then “capping the round off with the birdie on 18, nothing beats that,” Matsuyama said.

Spieth bogeyed the first hole but birdied six of the next 13.

“I was happy with where I was coming into today, but I felt like I played a little better than I scored,” he said. “So a low round was out there. And, hopefully, this wasn’t the lowest round of the weekend.”