Matsuyama has dealt with reoccurring back and neck injuries for the past few seasons.
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Hideki Matsuyama withdrew from the 2024 BMW Championship prior to the start of the second round citing a lower back injury.
“I am disappointed to have to withdraw from the BMW Championship after experiencing lower back discomfort while warming up this morning, which made it impossible to play,” Matsuyama said in a statement provided to the media. “Thank you to BMW and the Western Golf Association for a great experience here at Castle Pines.”
The 32-year-old Japanese star shot 5-under 67 in the first round at Castle Pines Golf Club. He had to wait three hours and 10 minutes during a suspension of play to hit his second shot at 18 on Thursday. He stuck it to two feet but missed the putt to finish the day one stroke off the lead.
Matsuyama won the FedEx St. Jude Championship on Sunday and entered the week at No. 3 in the season-long standings.
Matsuyama also withdrew from the BMW Championship last year while warming up for the second round, and has dealt with reoccurring back and neck injuries for the past few seasons.
Hideki Matsuyama is a WD prior to the second round of the BMW Championship with a lower back injury.
‘Maybe I hit a few too many balls yesterday or something. It was just a little sore.’
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. – It’s never good to see a professional golfer reaching for their lower back after hitting a shot. It’s even worse when that golfer is World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who is trying to win the FedEx Cup for the first time to cap off a spectacular season.
But on the 17th hole, Scheffler hit his second shot and touched his lower back with his left hand. PGA Tour XM Radio’s Mark McCumber described it as if “it took his breath away” and Scheffler leaned on his club for an extra second.
Scheffler finished with a couple of pars and posted three birdies and two bogeys for an opening-round, 1-under 71. After the round, Scheffler downplayed any potential injury, saying, “It’s fine.”
Scheffler did concede that he woke up with a sore back and had trouble loosening it up.
“It was hard for me to get through it, and I was laboring most of the day to get through the ball,” he explained. “On 17 I was trying to hit a high draw, and that’s a shot where I’ve really got to use a big turn, big motion.”
Asked to elaborate on what happened, he said, “Maybe I hit a few too many balls yesterday or something. It was just a little sore. I’m sure I’ll get some ice on it and stuff, and I’ll be totally fine tomorrow.”
Would he do any special treatment? “Just normal routine. Just like always,” he said.
Scheffler was paired Thursday with Xander Schauffele, who is second in the FedEx Cup and shot 69 to best Scheffler, the FedEx Cup leader, by two strokes.
Schauffele said he noticed that Scheffler’s back was stiff when he tried to turn his head but joked that it may be a bigger problem for the field than for Scheffler, noting that Scheffler needed treatment on his neck at the Players Championship and elsewhere when he won. “I guess it’s a bad sign for everyone else,” he said.
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — The days of the BMW Championship being a fixture in the Windy City are long gone, so, each year as the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs hopscotches around the country, the tournament merchandise shop leans into its latest locale. This year, that means a Rocky Mountain high, including shirts touting the course being at an elevation of 6,305 feet. But the love-it-or-hate-it item is the John Elway head cover by Swag Golf.
The BMW merchandise shop is a good mix of brands. Always fun to see Kjus for men and Foray Golf for women along with staples such as Peter Millar.
The Castle Pines logo is a pair of hummingbirds — the club address is on Hummingbird Drive — and there are several items for sale that feature the logo. Inside the clubhouse, the Hummingbird-logoed cap is being sold for $98. Whoa! As Al Czervik once said in Caddyshack, “when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?”
Here are some of our favorite items from the merchandise shop at the 2024 BMW Championship.
“When they stopped playing here, it was kind of a stab to the heart for me.”
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. – Wyndham Clark turned off Interstate 25 and onto Bellevue Road to work out with his trainer the other day, passing the land that used to be Mountain View Range, where he hit his first golf shots at age 3.
“It’s five skyrises. It’s kind of crazy to see that,” he said.
Some 27 years ago, his father, Randall, was away on business and so his mother, Lise, a non-golfer, strapped Clark and his siblings in the car and drove them to Mountain View with the sole purpose of getting the kids out of the house.
“She knew nothing about golf,” Clark told Golf Magazine. “She said, ‘My son wants to hit some golf balls,’ and got me a bucket. Had no clubs. They got me some. I hit one bucket and said, ‘Mom, can I hit another one?’ And it turned into, like, an hour and a half, two hours where I just sat there. It was a great reprieve for my mom. And, for me, that’s kind of when I fell in love with the game.”
Wyndham’s winding road returns to the Mile High City this week for the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club, the 30-year-old’s first start in his home state as a professional. The last time he played a tournament here? At the 2017 Pac-12 Championship in Boulder. He returns as the 2023 U.S. Open champion, a member of last year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team, represented the U.S. in the Paris Olympics, and ranked fifth in the world.
“You dream about those things, but you never really thought it could be this great,” he said. “I kind of exceeded my expectations in my own career, which is pretty amazing.”
Clark blossomed from those first buckets at Mountain View to learning the game at Family Sports Center, where he and his dad would hit balls for four and five hours at a time.
“Then I’d go do short game and play those nine holes. It’s amazing to see where I started at a kind of local muni and then go into the college ranks and being here, it’s pretty awesome,” he said.
Wyndham Clark of Team United States prepares to tee off on the 16th hole during the first round of men’s stroke play during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Le Golf National. (Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)
Growing up in Greenwood Village, the pride of Valor Christian High School skipped over a pretty significant development in his progression into one of the biggest stars in the game. When their son was 11, Clark’s parents scraped together the money to pay for a membership at Cherry Hills.
“To move to a country club where I could hit unlimited golf balls, that was my candy store,” he said. “I no longer had to put money in a ball machine. I would say, ‘Dad, we have free balls!’ He would sigh and say, ‘Yeah, isn’t that great?'”
Cherry Hills is one of golf’s great cathedrals, where Arnold Palmer drove the first green and made birdie en route to shooting 65 and erasing a six-shot deficit to win the 1960 U.S. Open. Clark, who often rode his bicycle to the course with his bag on his back, recalls being 15 when he first drove the par-4, 340-yard downhill opener, although he concedes it might have landed short and bounced to the fringe. Now, when he goes back he hits a soft, cut 3-wood to reach the green.
“Without Cherry Hills, I don’t know if I’d be here,” Clark said. “It is surreal that I spent my childhood walking past that display in the clubhouse about 1960, hoping that I could win the U.S. Open one day, and that I eventually did it.”
Along the way, he gained additional inspiration by attending The International, the first PGA Tour tournament he ever attended, when he was seven or eight years old. Clark recalls sitting at the ninth green and watching the likes of David Duval, Retief Goosen and Ernie Els marching down the fairway.
“That’s when I knew I wanted to do what they did,” he said. “Just visualizing and imagining myself being here one day, and it’s kind of crazy, fast forward 20-some years and I’m here.”
Before notching three Tour titles, he won the 2010 Colorado State Amateur, becoming the tournament’s youngest winner in nearly 40 years, and two high school championships, including shooting 64-64 in his senior year to win by eight. Sadly, the International closed up shop in 2006 and the BMW Championship last visited the Rocky Mountains in 2014 at Cherry Hills. Clark, a college student at the time at Oklahoma State, attended as a fan and watched his buddy, former Cowboy Morgan Hoffmann shoot 62-63 on the weekend. But it has been a decade since the Tour last played in Denver.
“When they stopped playing here, it was kind of a stab to the heart for me because it was so fun coming out and watching it,” he said of the International’s demise at the dawn of the FedEx Cup era. “So for me this is so special.”
No one had to twist Clark’s arm to shoot a commercial to promote the Tour’s return to his hometown alongside Denver Broncos greats John Elway and Peyton Manning. He’s been waiting for this week to play in front of family and friends that don’t usually get the chance to see him play on a course he said he loves. Plus, there’s no telling how long it will be until the Tour returns to his backyard. Clark won earlier this year at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and enters the week at No. 6 in the FedEx Cup after a T-7 last week at the first leg of the playoffs. Asked what it would mean to win the second leg in his hometown, he didn’t hesitate.
“It would be a dream come true,” he said, “been praying a lot about it and manifesting that maybe I would be the champion.”
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — The 2024 BMW Championship will be played at Castle Pines Golf Club, the PGA Tour’s first visit to the course since the 2006 International.
That event was a Modified Stableford scoring affair, while the BMW will be a traditional 72-hole, stroke-play contest.
But the stakes are huge. It’s the second leg of the 2024 FedEx Cup Playoffs, with just the top 50 players in the field. The purse is $20 million and the winner will bank $3.6 million.
Castle Pines will play at 8,130 yard this week. Check out some photos of the event.
The second leg of the 2024 FedEx Cup Playoffs will be at Castle Pines Golf Club.
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — The second leg of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs will be contested at Castle Pines Golf Club, the Tour’s first visit to the course since 2006.
The field was finalized Sunday night at the conclusion of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, won by Hideki Matsuyama. However, there were some big names who fell short of advancing.
There were 70 golfers at the St. Jude but 20 saw their seasons come to an end. Now the field is down to 50 with another 20 being lopped off Sunday night as only 30 advance to the season-ending Tour Championship.
Of the golfers making their way to this par-72 track that’ll play 8,130 yards this week are 18 PGA Tour winners from the 2024 season:
Akshay Bhatia
Wyndham Clark
Cam Davis
Nick Dunlap
Austin Eckroat
Billy Horschel
Stephan Jaeger
Chris Kirk
Shane Lowry
Robert MacIntyre
Hideki Matsuyama
Rory McIlroy
Matthieu Pavon
Taylor Pendrith
Aaron Rai
Xander Schauffele
Scottie Scheffler
Davis Thompson
The nine PGA Tour winners from 2024 who didn’t qualify for the BMW field:
Castle Pines Golf Club is hosting the PGA Tour for the first time since the 2006 International.
It’s the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and there’s now just 50 golfers still alive in the PGA Tour’s 2024 season.
The were 70 Tour pros who made the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis to kick off the postseason and a few big names failed to advance to the next round.
Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colorado, about 27 miles south of Denver, is hosting the PGA Tour for the first time since the 2006 International. Jason Day is the lone golfer in the 2024 BMW field who competed in that 2006 event.
Among the biggest movers up Sunday:
Viktor Hovland (up 41 spots to No. 16)
Sam Burns (up 11 to No. 18)
Denny McCarthy (up 15 to No. 30)
Will Zalatoris (up 12 to No. 37)
Eric Cole (up 8 to No. 46)
Nick Dunlap (up 19 to No. 48)
Hovland, Cole and Dunlap were the three to come from outside the top 50 when the week started to make the field next week.
On the flip side, that meant three golfers slid out and there were Tom Kim (down 8 to No. 51), Mackenzie Hughes (down 4 to No. 52) and Jake Knapp (down 9 to No. 59).
The total purse for the BMW will be $20 million with $4 million going to the winner. It’s the last tournament of the season that offers official prize money. The Tour Championship at East Lake doles out what the Tour considers “bonus” money.
Here’s the 50 golfers advancing to the 2024 BMW Championship, including the U.S. Ryder Cup captain for 2025 who made it in right on the number:
“I knew I still had two holes left, and that was just what I was thinking: Two more holes. I’ve got to make one birdie.”
Hideki Matsuyama blew a big lead but he recovered to birdie the final two holes and edge Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele by two strokes and win the 2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship.
“No lead is safe and I knew someone was going to make a run,” said Matsuyama of falling a stroke back. “I felt today’s victory slipping away…I knew I had to birdie and somehow I was able to get it on the green and (make the putt). It made 18 a lot easier to play.”
The 32-year-old Japanese star had his wallet stolen earlier in the week and didn’t have his coach or caddie, who had their passports lifted in the theft, at his disposal but it didn’t bother his game.
“Maybe because of that, I won this week,” he mused.
Or it may have been because he changed putters and had his best putting week of the season, closing in even-par 70 at TPC Southwind in Memphis on Sunday and a 72-hole total of 17-under 263. Matsuyama typically travels with as many as six different putters and before the tournament began he tinkered with them on the practice green.
“I felt like I needed a change of pace, kind of a refresh with my putter,” he explained.
Matsuyama, who won the bronze medal two weeks ago, built a five-stroke lead, the largest 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour this season, but still took three putters to the practice green on Sunday morning. He elected to stick with the Scotty Cameron putter that had treated him so well since he stuck it in the bag on Thursday.
“I’ve had the putter for a while, and I thought, well, it might be a good week to debut that putter,” said Matsuyama, who gained 8.2 strokes on the greens against the field.
Wearing a splash of his Sunday yellow and white, he opened with seven straight pars before he buried a 39-foot birdie putt at No. 8 and a 19-foot birdie putt at No. 11. On another typically hot and humid day, it looked as if Matsuyama wouldn’t need to break a sweat walking the difficult closing stretch in Memphis at a course where he lost in a playoff three years ago. Matsuyama played his first 65 holes in 19 under and then the next five in 4 over, finding the water off the tee at the par-3 14th for a bogey and a double bogey at the 15th that cost him the lead to Hovland.
“I knew I still had two holes left, and that was just what I was thinking: Two more holes. I’ve got to make one birdie,” Matsuyama said.
Matsuyama then sank a 26-foot uphill birdie putt at 17 to regain the lead and hit a beauty at 18 to 6 feet to seal his second win of the season, 10th career Tour title and improve to third in the FedEx Cup.
Schauffele trailed Matsuyama by nine strokes to start the day but birdied four of the first six holes and shot a bogey-free 7-under 63.
“It was a head-down day,” said Schauffele, who lipped out a birdie chip at 18. “You’re so far back.”
It’s been a disappointing year for Hovland, who had recorded just one top-10 finish this season. He needed to jump into the top 50 this week to advance to the BMW Championship otherwise he would’ve been the first player not to defend his title at the BMW. He made a bogey at 17 and missed a 9-foot birdie putt in his bid to win the third straight FedEx Cup playoff event dating to last year. Still, he vaulted to No. 16 in the FedEx Cup season-long standing and will have a chance to defend his title at the Tour Championship in two weeks.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who remains in the lead in the FedEx Cup, drained a 41-foot birdie putt at 18 to shoot 66 and finish fourth.
“I put up a good fight this week,”Scheffler said. “I tried to make my way up the leaderboard, but I just wasn’t able to do it.”
The top 50 finishers in the FedEx Cup season-long points race advanced to the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado. Eric Cole and Nick Dunlap joined Hovland as the three players who moved into the top 50 while Tom Kim, Mackenzie Hughes and Jake Knapp were the three players to drop out. Of the 50 players who advanced to the BMW Championship, 19 were not in the top 50 of the final 2023 FedEx Cup standings (38 percent).
After the Olympics, Matsuyama stopped in London for one day and enjoyed a celebratory meal with his caddie Shota Hayato, and coach, Mikihito Kuromiya. Matsuyama had already paid the bill when a robber swiped his wallet and also nabbed the passports and visas of his caddie. The members of Matsuyama’s team had no choice but to return to Japan and request expedited travel documents instead of going to Memphis for the first leg of the playoffs.
“Luckily I only lost my wallet,” said Matsuyama, who talked to his coach every day and used the regular caddie of fellow Japanese tour pro Ryo Hisatsune. “I’ve forgotten it completely. It’s not even an issue now.”
Nothing would stop Matsuyama from finally winning a FedEx Cup playoff event.
“I’ve tried hard for 10 years, and it’s a great feeling of satisfaction to finally be able to have done it,” he said.
The third round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship will not start on time Saturday at TPC Southwind.
MEMPHIS — The third round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship will not start on time Saturday at TPC Southwind.
Thunderstorms are expected to strike the Memphis area early Saturday, PGA Tour officials announced Friday afternoon. In light of the inclement forecast, players will begin teeing off at approximately 9:45 a.m. Saturday.
Rounds one and two featured the 70-player field teeing off in pairs every 10 minutes beginning at 7:20 a.m. on the first tee. On Saturday, players (in groups of three) will tee off simultaneously on Nos. 1 and 10 from 9:45-11:45 a.m.
The FedEx St. Jude Championship is no stranger to altering things based on the weather. Extreme heat and thunderstorms kept things from proceeding as planned, but it did not delay the conclusion of the tournament.
Chris Kirk held a one-stroke lead after day one of the signature event after shooting a 6-under-par Thursday. On Friday, Denny McCarthy, Sam Burns, Viktor Hovland enjoyed plenty of success, as each one shot 7-under.
McCarthy is in pain. So much pain that he’s having to alter his swing.
Denny McCarthy’s early success at the FedEx St. Jude Championship doesn’t tell the full story. The PGA Tour golfer is in Memphis, and he’s now adopting the city’s gritty mentality.
McCarthy is in pain. So much pain that he’s having to alter his swing while dealing with a torn labrum in his hip.
He mostly feels the pain on the downswing. McCarthy has to alter his rotation by pushing up through the ground more than he’s used to. The injury appeared to have surfaced during his Friday round at TPC Southwind, where he shot 63 and sat alone atop the leaderboard when he finished his last hole.
“Yeah, I don’t want to divulge too much,” McCarthy said. “It’s bothering me, and I’ve been able to do enough the last few days to push through it.”
The sweltering Memphis heat sometimes gets a bad reputation for its impact at TPC Southwind, but in the case of McCarthy, it has been helpful. Loosening up the hip is an important for McCarthy to push through, and the heat has been helping him with that.
“It feels really good,” McCarthy said. “I haven’t been thinking about it too much, which is nice. Just kind of been focused on — sounds cliche, I’ve just been focused on each shot really, trying to put the same amount of importance and focus into each shot.”
McCarthy entered the FedEx St. Jude championship with +15000 odds to win the tournament. Those odds put him just outside of the top 50 projected winners. The 31-year-old is still searching for his first career PGA Tour win despite some impressive performances this season. He notably finished second at the Valero Texas Open in April and had top-7 results at the John Deere Classic and Wells Fargo Championship.
A strong start on Thursday allowed McCarthy to jump ahead and lead the field, but he’ll have to grit and grind his way to the finish line. He did just that on Friday, and he has no intentions of shutting down.
As for after the tournament, McCarthy hasn’t ruled out the idea of surgery.
“I don’t know yet,” McCarthy said. “I’m not looking that far ahead. I’m kind of just focused on trying to get better each day this week, and that’s all I’m really focused on.”
Damichael Cole is the Memphis Grizzlies beat writer for The Commercial Appeal. Contact Damichael at damichael.cole@commercialappeal.com. Follow Damichael on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DamichaelC.
