Hideki Matsuyama needed little time to shake off the Holiday cobwebs as the Japanese stormed to victory in the 2025 PGA Tour season-opening The Sentry at Hawaii’s Kapalua Plantation Course.
A 72nd-hole birdie lifted the 2021 Masters champion to a -35 tally – a new PGA Tour score-to-par record – edging Cameron Smith’s 2022 tally at the same venue by a single stroke.
Back-to-back rounds of 65 saw him reach the halfway point with a single stroke advantage over Collin Morikawa, before the duo shot matching 62s on moving day to separate themselves from the pack and set up a mouthwatering final round duel.
After Saturday’s fireworks, Sunday’s final round began much in the vein of the early rounds of a big boxing bout as both pugilists felt each other out, but it was Matsuyama who landed the first meaningful blow as he holed out for eagle from 107 yards on the third hole while Morikawa could only birdie and suddenly there was clear daylight between them and it was a gap that Morikawa couldn’t bridge for the remainder.
Matsuyama carded further birdies on five, eight and nine with a lone bogey coming on the seventh. It would be his only dropped shot over the final 59 holes of the tournament, and he reached the 72nd hole with a three-shot advantage and needing birdie to set the new tournament-to-par record.
A crushed drive and sensible approach left him short of the green in two, and a deft chip left him an eight-footer with victory secure and the record books open to be rewritten. Forgoing the tradition of having Thomas Detry hole out from much shorter distance to clear the stage, Matsuyama wasn’t in the mood to hang about and rolled the putt dead centre, moving to -35 and sending a strong message to his PGA Tour rivals that he means business in 2025.
Morikawa, for his part, shot a final-round 67 to finish in solo second at -32, with Sungjae Im three shots further adrift at -29.
Venezuelan Jhonattan Vegas took solo fourth at -25, with Detry, Ludvig Aberg and Corey Conners tied for fifth on -24.
It was Matsuyama’s second victory in Hawaii having won the Sony Open in 2022 and is his third victory in the last 12 months having won the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in February and the Fed Ex St. Jude Championship in August.
“I’m very happy,” Matsuyama said in his post-tournament press conference. “I wanted to definitely win both tournaments in Hawaii. So I’m very happy to be able to do that.”
Often prone to struggles with his putter despite being an elite ball-striker, the Japanese ranked third in Strokes-Gained with the flatstick and second in Strokes-Gained-Approach – a combination that’s sure to put you at the top of the leaderboard – but it was his first tournament with the putter he used in play, telling the media that it was a very recent addition to his collection.
“I received the putter after Christmas,” he explained, “and I used the putter for the first time here.”
Morikawa has now been bridesmaid twice at the season-opening event in Maui, but he was fully complimentary towards his opponent and felt that it was his first nine holes on Sunday where the tournament slipped from his grasp.
“Yeah, excuse my language, but 35-under par is, that’s low,” he said. “I mean, he was matching me yesterday shot for shot, and I felt like I was playing lights out, right? Like, yes, you could leave some shots out there, but you shoot 11-under on any golf course, you’re going to be happy, right? Today he just never let up. Then you get to the third hole and the guy holes it. I just knew I had to be on top of everything, and just kind of let a few slip on that front nine. Played a good back nine, but to win on a course like this, conditions like this, you got to have it for 72, and I had it for 65.”
Matsuyama is back in action at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu this week, while Morikawa heads home and will return to action in a couple of weeks’ time.
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