Hideki Matsuyama Wins Hero World Challenge with Playoff Birdie

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00:00Let's start with Hideki Matsuyama's playoff win.

00:05Birdie's the first playoff hole.

00:07We've replayed 18 to defeat Alex Norin.

00:10Big congrats to your fellow Srixon teammate there.

00:13And how about Hideki starting the year, winning the century,

00:18and closing the year, winning the hero?

00:20Nice little booking for Hideki.

00:21Yeah, it was an interesting year for Hideki.

00:24First off, heading into the day,

00:26if you would have told me the playoff was anybody other than Sepp Straka

00:29and Scotty Sheffer, I would have said,

00:31I'll give you maybe one, but not two guys not in the playoffs.

00:37That was shocking, especially even heading into the back night.

00:40I felt like it was going to be one of those two guys to win the golf tournament.

00:43And then Hideki holes his iron shot on the 10th hole.

00:47It's a shot in from 116.

00:49He was seven under through eight holes at that point,

00:52going from the third to the 10th.

00:55Isn't it nice, too, when Hideki, when he won hands a finish,

00:59and it's like, you know, 20 feet or whatever.

01:00When Hideki holds a post, that's going in the hole.

01:04So I actually talked to Wyndham Clark about this,

01:07because he played with Hideki, I think, in the first round.

01:10And we were talking about how he won hands finishes.

01:14Maybe I was asked how Hideki played.

01:16He's like, yeah, Hideki made a lot of putts.

01:19But, you know, you just never know with his iron game.

01:22Like, there would be times that he would one arm it,

01:23and we'd go right at it.

01:25But he thinks that the only time he takes his hands off of the club

01:29is when he slightly mishits it.

01:31He said it could still go dead straight.

01:34Like, that happens all the time, or it could be going right at the pin.

01:37But if it's off center at all, that's when he takes his hands off the club,

01:41because he's played with them when he's hit it in the middle,

01:45and it's gone offline, like right or left, like big misses,

01:49and he doesn't take his hands off the club.

01:52So I think we've kind of figured out and solved the Hideki mystery

01:57of whether he gets good shots or bad shots or not.

01:59He's a contact merchant.

02:01He just likes to flush it, doesn't care where it goes.

02:03I thought it was, in the context of this week, Smiley,

02:07Hideki was second for the entire week in strokes gained around the green.

02:12Only moved out first.

02:13Dude, he's stupid.

02:15He's stupid.

02:16And the only reason he was second because JJ chipped in,

02:20JJ spawn chipped in three times on Sunday and leapfrogged him.

02:23So that was where your flip-flop was.

02:24And obviously we've talked about the raw strokes gained data at this event

02:27not mattering a ton because it's a limited field,

02:30but you can look at comparison within the field.

02:33But the shot link information is kind of a little wonky because how they get it,

02:39they have like somebody walking with every group and taking a picture of the

02:42golf ball where it is.

02:43And I think they triangulate it from there somehow.

02:47So I was kind of always using the data with a grain of salt a little bit,

02:51especially when it came to like proximity.

02:53But like scrambling stats, that doesn't change a whole lot.

02:56So, but just overall like gains and how much one had versus another,

03:02it's kind of wonky that way.

03:04Well, and I'll say too,

03:05we're going to talk about turf conditions a little bit later in the show

03:07with some sound from Wyndham Clark.

03:08But just you, you just started talking about how stupid Hideki short game is.

03:13Like, what'd you see, you know,

03:15from him that was really good in this department this week that helped him win

03:18this golf tournament?

03:19I think it's,

03:20I wish I would have looked up the stat over the last couple of years to see

03:23how many years ago Hideki's been leading and around the greens statistic.

03:29He's well known for how good of an iron player he was.

03:32I think if you think about the course of his career and you think about,

03:36all right, Hideki Matsuyama, brilliant iron player.

03:39Yes, I would tend to agree.

03:41That is a reason why he's a world-class player.

03:44But I think over the last couple of years, the iron game's still been good.

03:49He's had injuries he's dealt with,

03:51but he is the best pitcher in the golf ball in the game today.

03:55It's not even a question in my mind.

03:57This guy is unbelievable around the greens.

04:01His ability to, you know,

04:04he could put a golf ball on the top of your head and he could hit,

04:08he could do whatever he wanted with it.

04:10And I wouldn't even be concerned at all.

04:12I wouldn't be concerned about the top of your head.

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