Matsuyama remained calm through 64 holes this week – and even had a five-stroke lead at the FedEx St. Jude Championship when he walked off the 11th green.

It was a week of adversity for Matsuyama outside the ropes, but no matter. Matsuyama seemed to be doing just fine inside the ropes. There he seemed to be on his way to his second PGA Tour title of the season.

Things didn’t go so smoothly.

As Matsuyama approached the 12, a referee approached.

They talked. The NBC commentators were confused.

Finally, Mark Dusbabek, the PGA Tour’s lead TV rules and video analyst, declared that Matsuyama would not receive a penalty. Five holes earlier, on the 7th, Matsuyama had stepped on a pitch mark that was outside the green. However, after discussion, it was determined that it was far enough from his intended line of play that there was no penalty.

PGA Tour rules official Gary Young told Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis that the tour later found video evidence that the pitch mark was about three feet from his line of play.

Matsuyama later told Lewis that the conversation did not bother him.

“If I had been worried that I had done something wrong and would be punished for it, that would have unsettled me,” Matsuyama said through his interpreter. “But that really wasn’t an issue, so it was fine.”

It didn’t look like it.

Then he missed his tee shot on the 12th hole and made bogey. But don’t worry, he was still four shots ahead.

He then hit his tee shot on hole 13 into the bunker. No worries, he made par and was still four strokes ahead.

Then he blocked his approach shot into the water at 14. Don’t worry, he made a bogey and was still two holes ahead.

Then he hit his approach shot over the green in 15 strokes, botched his pitch in front of the green and managed the double. No worries, he still had a par 5 left.

Then he left his third shot in front of the green and missed the putt for birdie. Big worry. His five-stroke lead was gone and he still had two brutal par 4s to play at the TPC Southwind.

“When I played the 16th hole and looked at the scoreboard, I was actually one stroke behind,” Matsuyama admitted afterward. “I felt like today’s victory was slipping away from me at that point because holes 17 and 18 are difficult enough, let alone getting a birdie there.”

Then Matsuyama turned the tables. After finally finding the green on the 17th hole in regulation, Matsuyama sank a 26-foot birdie putt to take a one-shot lead over Xander Schuaffele and Viktor Hovland, who had a nine-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole. But Hovland missed and Matsuyama smashed his approach shot to six feet on Southwind’s toughest hole and made the putt that gave him a two-shot lead at 16 under par in the season’s first FedEx Cup Playoff event.

“I knew I had two more holes to go and that’s what I was thinking: Two more holes. I’ve got to make a birdie,” he said. “That putt (on 17) was a benefit of putting on the greens all week. I’ve been putting well all week and I thought, well, I’ve done it once so let’s do it again. Then 18 was just a piece of cake.”

His even-par 70 in the last round doesn’t tell the whole story.

It is Matusyama’s second win of the season after winning for the first time in two years at the Genesis Invitational in early February.

Matsuyama’s week was thrown into chaos before it even began when he, his caddy Shota Hayafuji and his coach Mikhito Kuromiya were robbed at London airport on their flight home from the Olympics. Hayafuji and Kuromiya both had their passports confiscated, meaning they had to return to Japan.

Although Dan Hicks reported that Hayafuji would be back in time for the BMW Championship next week, he had to sit out this week.

Matsuyama, however, dominated all week with his backup caddie Taiga Tabuchi and a brand new putter. The 2021 Masters winner started the week ranked 133rd on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting, but led the field in that category for the week despite considering a putter change on Sunday.

“It was the first time I worked with Taiga,” Matsuyama said. “In fact, I hadn’t spoken to him much before this week. I knew he had caddied for Ryo on tour earlier this year, so we played some practice rounds together.”

“You have a routine on the course, but with a new caddy that routine changes, so we worked on it all week. But he was a big help to me. He helped me read a lot of putts. He gave me a lot of good advice.”

His last-minute recovery and Hovland’s last-minute miss prevented Hovland from winning his third consecutive playoff title after winning both the BMW and Tour Championship en route to the FedEx Cup title in 2023.

But Hovland is in a very different position than he was a year ago, when he entered this week’s FedEx Cup standings outside the top 50. His second-place finish all but guarantees him a chance to defend both his BMW and Tour Championship titles despite a down year.

He finished tied with Xander Schauffele, who shot 63 in the final round to move up the leaderboard, one point ahead of Scottie Scheffler, the man he is tied with in the increasingly tight race for Player of the Year.

Jack Hirsh

Golf.com Publisher

Jack Hirsh is an assistant editor at GOLF. Jack is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Penn State University in 2020 with a degree in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his high school golf team and recently returned to the program as head coach. Jack also continues to try to stay competitive in local amateurs. Before joining GOLF, Jack worked for two years at a television station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a multimedia journalist/reporter, but also as a producer, anchor, and even a weather reporter. You can reach him at [email protected].