There is a belief that the golf played on Sunday afternoon at the Masters is different to any other. Never has this held so true as it did at Augusta National through an excruciating conclusion to the final round of this championship. At times it was hard to watch, impossible to predict.
For 14 holes of the final round, Hideki Matsuyama, 29, seemed in control. His lead stretched from four to five, then six shots and it was hard to imagine any stress through the final holes. He had played an exquisite chip on the 13th to set up birdie and once that was done, the Green Jacket seemed to be his.
Then Matsuyama had 236 yards to the pin on the par-five 15th. It was not an easy shot but the Japanese player’s ball-striking is so good, he was likely to find the green. And then the pressure of the moment caused him to make a bad swing and it flew low to a shallow green and bounded on into the water. It was his worst shot of the week.
That would lead to a six and with his playing partner Xander Schauffele making birdie, the lead was cut to two shots. Momentum was with the American who promptly hit his tee shot on the par-three 16th into the water and ended up making a triple-bogey six. Schauffele had never made a triple in a major championship.
That meant the 24-year-old Will Zalatoris was the only challenger, two shots backs. But Matsuyama played the last two holes well and was a deserving victor, in the end by a single shot.
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There was a moment early in the round that defined what makes a champion in this ever so difficult game. Matsuyama stood on the 5th tee with a two-shot lead and already he was getting to the point where that Green Jacket was his to lose. A 495-yard par-four, the fifth is the hardest hole at Augusta National and five is never a bad score.
Especially when the player finds the cavernous bunker on the left side of the fairway, as Matsuyama did. He does not often miss fairways and this really was not a good one to miss. He laid up from the bunker and then played a good wedge to 20 feet. There is hardly a flat putt on the 5th green and a bogey is not actually a bad result.
Matsuyama never saw it like that. He started the putt on the right line, struck it firmly and thought of nothing except making it. The ball rolled like it was on a mission and dropped straight into the middle of the cup. He did not pump the air or utter any approval but that was a big moment. Picking the ball from the hole, he clenched his right fist, executed the shortest little uppercut you have ever seen and walked off.
After playing so well for two rounds, Justin Rose’s challenge petered out. He could not reproduce the brilliance of his opening round. Then he was in complete control of his swing and his mindset. That is how it seemed, not how it was. When the pressure built over the following two days, we learnt why Rose returned to the coach Sean Foley. He stayed among the leaders because he is gritty and holed a lot of putts.
In the final round, the inconsistent ball-striking caught up with Rose and he dropped out of contention, finishing seventh.
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Matsuyama is the first Asian player to have won the Masters, the first Japanese man to have a major championship, but they are not what truly matters here. Matsuyama has always been wonderfully talented and yet before now, the mystery was why he had won so little and had not won at all since August 2017.
At 22 he got his first win on the PGA Tour at the Memorial Tournament and Jack Nicklaus told anyone within earshot that Matsuyama would become one of the great players of this generation. A seven-shot victory at the World Golf Championship-HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai in 2016 followed by an equally emphatic five-shot victory at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club confirmed the potential.
Until the last four days, he was an unfulfilled talent.
As is customary on Sunday afternoons at the Masters, it was not an entirely smooth ride for the champion-to-be. The challengers came in waves. First Zalatoris, who has been wonderfully composed for a young man in his first Masters and contending through the weekend.
He came into the tournament well advised by his friend and mentor, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.
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“I told him to be prepared for his life to change over the course of four days,” Romo said. “I want to tell you this so you can be prepared for it. Don’t be surprised, embrace it and know it’s the normal progression.
“I said turn off your phone on Friday night, and you can apologise to the people you didn’t respond to later and you can go back and do that but just watch movies and play golf next weekend.”
Zalatoris started with two birdies and got within two shots of the lead and as Matsuyama made bogey at the opening hole, the prospect of a fraught final round was real and inviting. What was it Oscar Wilde once wrote? “The suspense is terrible, I hope it lasts.” Though if you looked closely, it was hard to see any stress in Matsuyama’s demeanour.
He missed his first tee shot, leaving it into the trees to the right. That did not seem to bother him, nor his caddie Shota Hayafuji who ran up the hill with the bag on his back, determined to get to the ball before his boss and get his work done.
There was a tunnel through the trees, Matsuyama played out through, eventually left himself a 20-foot putt for par. Though it just stayed out, the putt was reassuringly positive.
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From there, Matsuyama played solidly and when he needed something more, he found it. That was until that four-iron on the 15th that changed everything and turned what was a relatively comfortable situation into a fraught and nerve-racking battle.
