How Hideki Matsuyama’s Masters win could revive golf’s popularity in Japan
Hideki Matsuyama may instantly have risen to the greatest golfing hero Japan has ever known with Sunday’s roller-coaster ride Masters win. Now, however, comes the hard part.Because as challenging as closing the deal on becoming the first Japanese-born male golfer to win a major championship clearly was during Sunday’s frenetic finish, now the shy, workman-like Matsuyama stands at the forefront of what one long-time Japanese golf business observer called “an epoch-making event.”
Japan may comfortably stand as the world’s second largest golf market, accounting for a fifth of the global golf business all by itself, but it is long removed from the country’s golf boom of the late 1980s and ‘90s. With the last decade seeing flat revenues and declining play and players, Matsuyama’s win is an opportunity to inject new life in a nation that has been waiting for a golf moment like this for more tha
Hideki Matsuyama and his caddie. Picture: Getty We all know that a four-shot lead in any golf tournament – yes, even the Pumpherston 36-hole Husband & Wife Salver – can be as brittle as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Holding a decent margin at any time of the closing day of The Masters, meanwhile, comes with plenty of warnings from history. Greg Norman, Rory McIlroy, and Jordan Spieth will all vouch for that. When Hideki Matsuyama was ushered on to the first tee yesterday to begin his final round at Augusta, you could just about hear the sharp intake of expectant breath from his native Japan. Forget getting the Green Jacket. A Masters win would give him the keys to the Golden Pavilion
April 13, 2021 08:20
Hideki Matsuyama won the 85th Masters in dramatic fashion Sunday, holding off Xander Schauffele to become the first Japanese man to capture a major golf title.
Carrying the hopes of a nation on his shoulders, Matsuyama calmly grinded out clutch pars and struck for crucial birdies in a pressure-packed march at Augusta National, hanging on over the final holes for a historic one-stroke victory.
Matsuyama took the green jacket symbolic of Masters supremacy, a top prize of $2.07 million and a place for the ages in Japanese sports history. I m really happy, he said through a translator. Hopefully I ll be a pioneer in this and many other Japanese will follow. I m happy to open the floodgate and many more will follow me.
Tears and cheers as Matsuyama victory at Masters thrills Japan visayandailystar.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from visayandailystar.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.