After watching playing partner Alex Noren sink an 18-foot putt on the 18th hole for his third birdie in his last four holes to force a sudden-death playoff at the Hero World Challenge, Hideki Matsuyama delivered some drama of his own.
Back on 18 for the first playoff hole, Matsuyama knocked a 9-iron from 166 yards to 2 feet, 7 inches and, after Noren missed a 26-footer, rolled in the birdie putt to win the Hero World Challenge, hosted by Tiger Woods at Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas.
Asked what he was thinking before the decisive shot, Matsuyama said, “I couldn’t make birdie putt on 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18. So (he and his caddie) decided to go right at it.
“It was a perfect distance for me. Early on the second shot (in regulation), I missed a little to the right. I was going right at it and was able to hit a great shot.”
Matsuyama, who won the Hero in 2016, earned $1 million for topping the exclusive 20-player field in the unofficial Tour event. It was his first victory since winning The Sentry, the first tournament of the 2025 PGA Tour season in January in Hawaii. He did not post another top-10 finish the rest of the year.
Matsuyama and Noren Came from Behind
Matsuyama and Noren started the final day tied for third, three shots behind leader Sepp Straka and two shots behind Scottie Scheffler. Both Matsuyama and Noren shot 8-under-par 64s to finish at 22 under par while Straka and Scheffler had 68s to finish third and tied for fourth, respectively.
Matsuyama had another dramatic shot on the par-4 10th hole, holing out for eagle from 116 yards. That allowed him to move past Scheffler and catch Straka.
“A lot of luck with No. 10 eagle,” Matsuyama said through an interpreter. “And also the partner with Alex, he played well like last four, five hole, so it was good mood playing together.”
Tough Day for Scheffler
Scheffler, the two-time defending champion, had a slow start and a two-hole stretch early on the back nine that ruined his bid for a three-peat.
Two shots out of the lead on the par-5 11th, Scheffler chose to hit driver off the deck from 291 yards away with a speck of mud on the front of his ball. It went left under a small bush. He hacked that out to a sandy area, then hit his fourth shot over the green to the back portion of a bunker. Only a superb bunker shot allowed him to escape with a bogey.
When Scheffler’s tee shot found a bunker on the par-3 12th, resulting in a bogey, he was five shots behind Matsuyama. The tie for fourth with U.S. Open champ J.J. Spaun, who shot a closing 65, gave Scheffler no finishes worse than a tie for eighth in his last 16 events dating to the Houston Open in March.
“I played better than my score, for sure,” said Scheffler of Sunday’s round. “Didn’t hole as many putts today. I felt like I hit some good ones that didn’t fall and I got a couple poor breaks on the back nine.
“I did a lot of good stuff. Hit the ball pretty nice. Definitely need to be sharper around the greens, but that’s probably a bit of rust. But coming down here is always a good gauge to kind of see where you are around the greens because it’s pretty challenging, so I felt pretty good.”
