Hideki Matsuyama picked up his third PGA Tour win on Sunday, making history as he became the first Asian player to win a WGC event.
He had a dominating week in China, winning by a whopping seven shots.
Matsuyama is a Rising Son from Japan, reaching a lofty No. 6 in the world rankings this week. He’s big news in Japan and has a complete game. His next step is to threaten in a major.
He’s carrying the hopes of an entire nation. Japan hasn’t had a hero like this since a fellow named Masashi Ozaki came along in the late 60s, a former professional baseball pitcher who turned to golf and became the biggest thing in Japan since sushi.
Matsuyama is chasing the legend we came to know as “Jumbo.” He hit Jumbo drives, for sure, he could crush a balata ball more than 300 yards on a regular basis. That was huge distance back then.
Jumbo stayed in the top 10 of the world rankings from 1989 to 1998.
Jumbo spent most of his career on the Japanese Tour where he won a whopping 94 times and had a total of 113 professional wins.
His nation had Jumbo-fever. He came to the United States mostly to play in the majors.
He finished tied for eighth in the 1973 Masters, tied for sixth at the 1989 U.S. Open, tied for 10th at the 1979 British. Close but never a major champion.
Didn’t matter. His country loved him, he helped driver the golf movement over there where most could not afford to actually play on the golf course but regularly would crowd into triple-decker driving ranges, constructed that way because of the high cost of land.
An American PGA Tour player once visited Japan to play in an exhibition and was at one of those huge ranges. While he was there, he watched a guy smashing incredible driver, long and straight, one after another. The tour player couldn’t help himself, he approached the man and asked him “Where do you play?”
The man replied: “I play No. 1 wood.” It was then that the tour player figured out the guy owned just one golf club and the closest he came to playing golf was smashing drives at that range.”
That’s the way it was for many over there. They saw Jumbo smash drives and they simply wanted to do what he was doing.
Ozaki went on to the World Golf Hall of Fame where he was elected in 2011 and inducted in 2012 — the first Japanese star to go into the Hall.
Isao Aoki would follow him two years later.
Which brings us back to Hideki.
He is now “that guy” in Japan.
He has more skills, more game than both Ozaki and Aoki.
His three tour wins at age 24 are testament to that. He has a long career in front of him and if a Japanese player is ever going to win a men’s major, well Matsuyama is the likely candidate.
This WGC win was a huge step for him, his star on the world stage just grew a little brighter.
