Hideki Matsuyama is again in Augusta, Ga., taking a shot at successful a second consecutive ceremonial inexperienced jacket.
Matsuyama, 30, and a former teenage prodigy, set data final 12 months when he gained the Masters by one stroke, changing into the event’s first Asian-born champion and the primary Japanese man to win a serious golf championship.
Notably lacking from final 12 months’s event was Tiger Woods, who didn’t compete due to a severe leg damage he sustained in a automotive crash that February. His absence opened the door for a brand new period of youthful golfers to showcase their expertise on the game’s largest stage.
Nonetheless, Matsuyama was positioned as something however the potential champion.
Coming into the 2021 Masters, Matsuyama was ranked twenty fifth on this planet and had not gained a event since 2017. But a glowing 65 within the third spherical gave Matsuyama a head begin for his victory lap: He entered the final spherical with a four-stroke benefit and shot a one-over-par 73 to complete the event at 10 beneath par, only one stroke forward of Will Zalatoris, the 25-year-old Masters rookie from San Francisco. Zalatoris’s second-place end helped increase his profile throughout the {golfing} neighborhood.
Xander Schauffele and Jordan Spieth, additionally from america, tied for third at seven beneath par.
Matsuyama, who realized golf from his father, had lengthy been lionized in Japan and seen because the nation’s greatest likelihood to interrupt by at golf’s largest event. Two Japanese ladies, Hisako Higuchi and Hinako Shibuno, have been main champions.
Matsuyama just isn’t a favourite heading into this 12 months’s event — Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas have the shortest odds at roughly 12-1 — however the video games are solely simply starting.
