Japan’s rising son faces historic Sunday moment

April 08-11
Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, Georgia
Round 1, Round 2, Round 4

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

 

In sports the wherewithal to break barriers for the first time can prove to be an immense challenge. It can also provide an immense opportunity.

Sunday’s final round for the 85th edition of the Master will feature Hideki Matsuyama’s attempt to be the first Japanese player to capture the green jacket — emblematic of a Masters champion. A win at Augusta would also make him just the 2nd Asian-born player — following the success of Y.E. Yang – at the 2009 PGA Championship — to win one of golf’s four most prized events.

During 3rd round play the 29-year-old separated himself from a number of challengers, including first and second round leader Justin Rose, with flawless execution resulting in a score of 30 on the back nine that included four birdies and an eagle at the par-5 15th. The seven-under-par 65 matched the low round of the tournament — which Rose scored during Thursday’s first round — and was bogey-free.

 

Matsuyama was ranked as high as 5th at the start of the 2018 season. He is now ranked 25th.

The start of Saturday’s 3rd round had Rose holding a one-shot lead over two players — Brian Harman and Masters rookie Will Zaladoris. No fewer than ten players were within three shots of the lead — including Matsuyama.

Play was suspended shortly after 4:00 PM local time and the course was evacuated for approximately 75 minutes as there were periods of heavy rain that both enabled certain players and confused others — as previously firm conditions were softened.

Matsuyama will be in the final twosome Sunday along with Xander Schauffele who has crept up the leaderboard and for the briefest of moments was tied for the lead after eagling the par-5 15th with a 60-foot putt.

 

Hideki’s major championship record in recent years has not been good — his last top ten finish was a T5th at the 2017 PGA Championship. His best Masters finish, up to this point, was 5th in 2015. Matsuyama has won five times on the PGA Tour — two coming in WGC events with the last visit to the winner’s circle taking place at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August 2017.

A victory Sunday will be of earthquake proportions for the Japanese native. That outcome is certainly not preordained and the cauldron of pressure Matsuyama will face in the final round will be something he has never experienced with so much now on the line.

 

Masters Notes

* Canadian Corey Conners aced the par-3 6th hole during Saturday’s 3rd round. This marked the 6th time the hole has been aced in Masters competition and the first one there in nine years. The hole-in-one also helped Conners in the tournament– he is six-under-par and five shots behind the leader Matsuyama.

 

* Scoring average for the 3rd round was 72.42 — second lowest thus for this year’s event. Overall, scoring average for all rounds combined is 73.15.

* The toughest hole to birdie remains the par-4 5th — only 5 have been made through three rounds. The 5th also remains the hardest hole with an average score of 4.45. The par-4 11th is second at 4.39.

 

 

Pos.	Player	To Par	R1	R2	R3	Total
1	Hideki Matsuyama	-11	69	71	65	205
T2	Marc Leishman	-7	72	67	70	209
T2	Justin Rose	-7	65	72	72	209
T2	Xander Schauffele	-7	72	69	68	209
T2	Will Zalatoris	-7	70	68	71	209
6	Corey Conners	-6	73	69	68	210
7	Jordan Spieth	-5	71	68	72	211
8	Brian Harman	-4	69	69	74	212
9	Tony Finau	-3	74	66	73	213
T10	Si Woo Kim	-2	71	69	74	214
T10	Robert MacIntyre	-2	74	70	70	214
T10	Bernd Wiesberger	-2	74	66	74	214
T13	Stewart Cink	-1	74	69	72	215
T13	Viktor Hovland	-1	73	70	72	215
T13	Kevin Na	-1	75	70	70	215
T13	Ryan Palmer	-1	74	68	73	215
T13	Patrick Reed	-1	70	75	70	215
T13	Cameron Smith	-1	74	68	73	215
T13	Henrik Stenson	-1	73	71	71	215
T13	Justin Thomas	-1	73	67	75	215
T21	Mackenzie Hughes	E	72	72	72	216
T21	Shane Lowry	E	71	73	72	216
T21	Phil Mickelson	E	75	72	69	216
T21	Francesco Molinari	E	74	73	69	216
T21	Joaquin Niemann	E	75	71	70	216
T21	Jon Rahm	E	72	72	72	216
T21	Scottie Scheffler	E	73	72	71	216
T21	Webb Simpson	E	70	76	70	216
T29	Cameron Champ	1	72	68	77	217
T29	Matt Fitzpatrick	1	74	70	73	217
T29	Tommy Fleetwood	1	74	70	73	217
T29	Matt Jones	1	74	69	74	217
T29	Martin Laird	1	74	71	72	217
T29	Collin Morikawa	1	73	69	75	217
T29	Charl Schwartzel	1	74	71	72	217
T29	Matt Wallace	1	74	72	71	217
T29	Bubba Watson	1	74	70	73	217
T38	Bryson DeChambeau	2	76	67	75	218
T38	Harris English	2	74	71	73	218
T38	Jason Kokrak	2	71	76	71	218
T38	Sebastián Muñoz	2	74	73	71	218
T38	Louis Oosthuizen	2	76	70	72	218
T43	Abraham Ancer	3	75	69	75	219
T43	Tyrrell Hatton	3	71	74	74	219
T43	Ian Poulter	3	74	73	72	219
T43	Michael Thompson	3	72	72	75	219
T47	Christiaan Bezuidenhout	4	70	76	74	220
T47	Paul Casey	4	73	74	73	220
T47	Billy Horschel	4	76	71	73	220
T47	Brendon Todd	4	73	71	76	220
T47	Gary Woodland	4	73	72	75	220
52	José María Olazábal	5	75	71	75	221
53	Jim Herman	6	76	70	76	222
54	Adam Scott	10	74	73	79	226
CUT	Daniel Berger	4	75	73		148
CUT	Sergio Garcia	4	76	72		148
CUT	Max Homa	4	74	74		148
CUT	Matt Kuchar	4	78	70		148
CUT	Jimmy Walker	4	75	73		148
CUT	Lanto Griffin	5	76	73		149
CUT	Dustin Johnson	5	74	75		149
CUT	Kevin Kisner	5	72	77		149
CUT	Brooks Koepka	5	74	75		149
CUT	Mike Weir	5	78	71		149
CUT	Lee Westwood	5	78	71		149
CUT	Danny Willett	5	76	73		149
CUT	Dylan Frittelli	6	76	74		150
CUT	Rory McIlroy	6	76	74		150
CUT	Cheng Tsung Pan	6	79	71		150
CUT	Robert Streb	6	75	75		150
CUT	Zach Johnson	7	77	74		151
CUT	Bernhard Langer	7	74	77		151
CUT	Victor Perez	7	78	73		151
CUT	Patrick Cantlay	8	79	73		152
CUT	Brian Gay	8	78	74		152
CUT	Charles Osborne (a)	8	76	76		152
CUT	Jason Day	9	77	76		153
CUT	Carlos Ortiz	9	82	71		153
CUT	Ian Woosnam	9	76	77		153
CUT	Joe Long (a)	10	82	72		154
CUT	Sandy Lyle	12	81	75		156
CUT	Hudson Swafford	12	73	83		156
CUT	Fred Couples	13	79	78		157
CUT	Sungjae Im	13	77	80		157
CUT	Vijay Singh	15	79	80		159
CUT	Tyler Strafaci (a)	17	80	81		161
CUT	Larry Mize	19	84	79		163
DQ	Matthew Wolff	E