PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Hideki Matsuyama put on quite a show for the fans on Thursday, shooting a course-record tying 9-under 63 at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in the opening round of the Players Championship.
But there won’t be many witnesses if more history is made in the final three rounds of the tournament as the PGA Tour announced that due to concerns of coronavirus all of its events will proceed without fans through the Valero Texas Open, April 2-5.
“It will be strange tomorrow,” Matsuyama said through an interpreter. “I think all of us will have to go back to our college days to play without gallery. But with that said, I know there’s a lot of people watching television and a lot of fans rooting for us and so I’ll do my best.”
Matsuyama, who began his round on the back nine, took advantage of soft conditions, receptive greens and attacked pins to birdie his first four holes en route to carding the ninth round of 63 at designer Pete Dye’s house of horrors since Fred Couples became the first to do so in 1992, and the fifth in the first round. Three of the previous four players to shoot 63 in the first round went on to win: Greg Norman (1994), Martin Kaymer (2014) and Jason Day (2016).
Matsuyama of Japan made his lone bogey of the day when he splashed his second shot at the par-5 16th in the water, but he capped off his round by smoking a 291-yard 3-wood to 25 feet right of the back left hole location and rammed the putt in for eagle.
“I knew if I made that putt, if I made eagle there, I would be close to a course record,” Matsuyama said.
That's how you finish. 🦅
An eagle to tie the course record for Hideki Matsuyama.#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/E6faRFR1s3
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 12, 2020
For one day, at least, the putter was more friend than foe for Matsuyama. He took just 25 putts, holing nearly 112 feet of putts and ranked first in Strokes Gained: Putting. On the season, he ranks T-198 in that category.
“It’s the best he’s putted this season, bar none,” said his translator Bob Turner, who watches nearly all of his rounds. “He did not miss a putt, even the long lags were perfect touch, leaving tap ins.”
Matsuyama’s ball striking has been its usual reliable stuff, but the putter has kept him from the winner’s circle.
“I’ve been working hard and have a lot of confidence now in my swing,” Matsuyama said. “Today I made some putts and that seems to be the difference of late. That was really the catapult to me to have a good round today.”
Some of the credit for Matsuyama’s turnaround with the short stick may go to sticking a different Scotty Cameron by Titleist model putter in his bag this week. He has won five times on Tour and reached World No. 2, but hasn’t hoisted a trophy since the World Golf Championship at Firestone Country Club in 2017 and has slipped to No. 21.
“He played great,” said Patrick Cantlay, who played in the same threesome and signed for 5-under 67 and tied with last week’s runner-up Marc Leishman. “It was actually sneaky hard out there. I got so many mud balls that it was darn near a complete guessing game four or five times from the middle of the fairway.”
Matsuyama finished two strokes ahead of American Harris English, who recorded his fifth top-10 finish last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who fired a bogey-free round in his just his third Tour start and his Players debut. Bezuidenhout, 25, is ranked No. 48 in the world. If he remains in the top 50 after the WGC-Dell Match Play in two weeks, he will earn a spot in the Masters for the first time.
“It’s obviously in the back of my mind,” he said.
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