KAPALUA, Hawaii – After making a birdie on half of the holes at the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort on Saturday and an eagle for an 11-under 62, Hideki Matsuyama never smiled. The 32-year-old Japanese star also refused to speak separately to the Japanese media, a dedicated team that follows his every snap and hangs on his every word, for the second day in a row. And that was — we repeat — after a bogey-free 62 that set a 54-hole tournament record and also tied the Tour record.
“I mean, he matched me (Saturday) shot for shot, and it felt like I was playing with the lights out, right?,” said Collin Morikawa, who matched Matsuyama shot for shot and didn’t bother hitting another ball at the match. “Like, yeah, you can leave some shots out there, but you shoot 11 under on any golf course, you’re going to be happy, right?”
Matsuyama, however, is his harshest critic and he rose to the occasion to iron out the flaws he perceived in his game. What he might need to do in the pits is to head scratching, but Matsuyama said he had to fix his driver and we’ll take his word for it because it worked. The work never stops, and very few people can match Matsuyama’s grit and determination to squeeze every ounce of brilliance out of his game.
All the hard work paid off Sunday when Matsuyama aimed cleanly on the par-4 fourth hole and twice popped a wedge from 107 yards into the hole for an eagle.
The mercurial Matsuyama, who has a well-deserved reputation for lowering his head or dropping a hand from his club in disgust, only for the shot in question to be a thing of beauty, looked at his approach to the fourth and hit the knuckles with his caddy when he fell. He closed in 8-under 65 to win The Sentinelthe PGA Tour season opener by three shots over Morikawa, and notches his third victory in a marquee event in the last 10 months.
Morikawa, who shot a 67 in the final round despite his putter cooling, reached the par-5 15th in two and made a birdie to cut his deficit to two, but once Matsuyama holed out to 4 feet at 16 to extend the lead to three, Morikawa felt he wasn’t going to catch Matsuyama. He settled for his second runner-up at The Sentry in the last three years.
“Excuse my language, but 35 below par is low,” Morikawa said, drop an F bomb to emphasize. “Today, he never gave up.”
Wearing his Sunday yellow, the color of his university in Japan, Matsuyama closed in style with an 8-foot birdie putt to set the all-time 72-hole record against par with a total of 35 under 257.
“That last putt, I felt like if I made it, then that would be the record, so I’m so happy it went in,” Matsuyama said.
Matsuyama had already won the Sony Open in Hawaii in 2022, and his Sentry title made him the seventh player to win the Hawaiian Slam. To win the 11th Victory of his career on the circuit, Matsuyama’s game was at full speed. He placed first in Stroke Gained: Tee to green, second in SG: Approach to green and third in Scrumbling and SG: Putting.
Matsuyama, who loves tinkering with putters and said he traveled to Maui with four different options, inserted into the bag for the first time this week a prototype Scotty Cameron 009M CS putter that he had seen another player use and received little after Christmas.
“I thought, ‘Oh, that looks good,’ so I asked them to make one,” he said of the putter change Thursday.
His putter delivered on Sunday. After Morikawa hits a beauty from 10 feet at the par-3 11th green, Matsuyama holed a 31-foot birdie putt and one hole later he holed a 21-foot birdie putt to extend his lead to four. He even greeted the crowd happily.
“When the heat comes up, he gets his nails,” said Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee.
And when the final putt fell at 18 to break Cameron Smith’s 2022 Sentry 72-hole record, Matsuyama caddy Shota Hayafuji celebrated the special week as only he can. Hayafuji, who removed his hat and bowed after putting the pin back in the hole at 18 when Matsuyama won the 2021 Masters, showed more emotion this time, bumping chests with Mikito Kiromiya, the Matsuyama’s golf coach, before lifting him into his arms and then jumping into the arms of Yuyu Suzaki, another member of Matsuyama’s support team. Matsuyama was in the middle of an interview as this happened, but the corners of his mouth turned up.
He finally had reason to smile.
This article was originally published on Golfweek: hideki-matsuyama-wins-sentry-pga-2025-tour-record
