USA TODAY International Edition
Defending champ Matsuyama at home at Scottsdale course
World No. 5 has high expectations at Phoenix Open
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. One wouldn’t exactly be going out on a limb by appointing Hideki Matsuyama the favorite to win this week at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
He’s the defending champion, after all, and a winner of four of his last eight starts worldwide. He’s also finished in a tie for fourth, a tie for second and first in his three appearances at TPC Scottsdale, posting 14- under par each year. Oh, and he loves the place. “I’m not really sure whether it’s the course, but I do know that the tremendous galleries that we have here just invigorates me and gets me going,” Matsuyama said Tuesday through an interpreter. “I love playing here.”
He’s loved playing anywhere of late. Starting with his tie for fifth in the 2015- 16 season- ending Tour Championship in September, Matsuyama has elevated his game to the rank of No. 5 in the official world rankings. He won the Japan Open in his next start and finished second in the CIMB Classic in Malaysia. Then he won the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions, the Taiheiyo Masters on the Japan Tour and the Hero World Challenge in his next three starts.
He then finished second in the SBS Tournament of Champions in Hawaii before finishing in ties for 27th and 33rd in his last two starts in the Sony Open and Farmers Insurance Open.
It’s the kind of run that lifts expectations, which Matsuyama doesn’t mind. He’s a quiet 24year- old with power and a lot of game who works hours on end to perfect his craft.
“I have played well the last six months or so,” Matsuyama said. “I didn’t have real good tournaments at Sony and Farmers, so I’m a little reluctant to say I’m in top form. But hopefully coming back to the desert, especially here in Scottsdale, it revitalized me. Hopefully I’ll be able to compete on Sunday for a repeat. … There are higher expectations, but, you know, in golf, it comes and goes. What I’m trying to do is be more consistent. I’d love to be able to compete every week, you know, to win.
“But I’m also trying, even when I’m not playing well, to be able to raise that level of my game to a point that I’m out there doing my best.”
Matsuyama was at his best in Sunday’s final round of last year’s Waste Management Phoenix Open. Helped by Rickie Fowler’s double- bogey 6 on the 71st hole, Matsuyama forced his way into a playoff with birdies on his final two holes.
Then after each made par on the first extra hole, birdie on the second extra hole and par on the third, Matsuyama, who has won eight titles on the Japan Tour, wrapped up his second of three PGA Tour titles with a par on the last extra hole.
“What I remember, I guess, is some of the putts that went in,” Matsuyama said. “I putted well during that playoff.”
He’s done a lot of things well ever since. World No. 6 Jordan Spieth, who along with Matsuyama headlines a field including Justin Thomas, Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed and Fowler, has been impressed with Matsuyama for some time.
“He’s got all the keys,” Spieth said at the Hero World Challenge. “I think he’ll be a major champion within the next couple years.”
Well, Matsuyama doesn’t like to get too far ahead of himself, but the Masters is already on his mind.
“The preparation has begun already, to be able to compete well there,” he said. “I still have some weak links in my game, and I have to work on them. But hopefully I will do so, improve them, and someday I will be a major champion.”
He could be No. 1, too.