Hideki Matsuyama with his new Scotty Cameron centre-shaft blade putter during the opening day of the 2025 season at Hawaii on Thursday. Image courtesy PGA Tour/Getty Images.
By Rahul Banerji
Japanese superstar Hideki Matsuyama made a blistering start at the Sentry, the PGA Tour’s season-opening event, on the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Hawaii on Thursday.
The 32-year-old, Asia’s top performer on the tour in 2024, fired a superb 8 under par 65 for tied second place alongside Will Zalatoris of the US after the first round a shot behind Tom Hone, the PGA Tour said.
Further back, Indian Americans Akshay Bhatia and Sahith Theegala were much more subdued while Indo-Brit Aaron Rai had a better day.
With a 5 under 68 Rai shared 10th place while Bhatia was 2-under 71 and T30 and Theegala, who was hit by a triple bogey, went 3 over 76 for tied 56th place
With a new flat stick – a Scotty Cameron centre-shaft blade putter – in his bag, Matsuyama fired an eagle, seven birdies and a bogey to trail Hoge by a shot.
Korea’s Sungjae Im, who has three top-10s in four starts at The Sentry, opened with a 69 for tied 16th while compatriot Byeong Hun An came home with a 70.
Kevin Yu of Chinese Taipei, making his tournament debut, carded a 73 while another Korean star, Si Woo Kim, came home with a 76.
Last season, Matsuyama cemented his stature as Asia’s most decorated golfer by winning twice to raise his PGA Tour tally to 10 titles.
A fast start in Kapalua will certainly get his adrenaline flowing as he chases a unique Hawaiian double following his triumph at the 2022 Sony Open. He has three top-5s at Kapalua (T3 in 2015, second in 2017, and T4 in 2018).
“I didn’t think I would shoot as low as I did today, so I’d love to do same thing tomorrow and post another good score. I think it was a pretty good round,” said Matsuyama, who hit 11 fairways and 16 greens in regulation.
Ongoing changes
“The things I’ve been working on and what I was doing today are different, but there were some things that were going well, but also a few things I need to improve on.”
Playing alongside fellow major winners, Adam Scott and Justin Thomas, Matsuyama got hot early under breezy conditions with four consecutive birdies from holes 5 to 8 before picking up his fifth birdie of the day on 11.
A three-putt bogey on 13 was quickly erased with a 10-foot birdie at the next, followed by a stellar eagle on 15 when his 5-iron approach landed six feet of the flag. He rolled in another five-footer on 16 to match his lowest career score in 29 rounds at The Sentry.
In his last win at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August, Matsuyama had also put a new putter in his bag, and with another flatstick amongst his tools this week, the Asian superstar hopes to ride to an 11th tour title.
“I saw somebody else using it (the putter) and I thought, Oh, this looks good, so I had them make one, and I’m using it this week,” he explained.
Matsuyama’s only blemish was the three-putt on 13 from 13 feet, but he shrugged it off with three successive 3s.
Stellar record
“You know, I’m going to have some 3-putts throughout the year, so don’t worry about it,” said Matsuyama, who holds the best active streak of 11 consecutive seasons in the top-50 of the FedEx Cup standings.
“I bogeyed the hole, and then I had a bad kind of a tee shot (on 14), but I was able to birdie that hole, and just kind of kept going, so that was a good stretch.”
Ahead of Matsuyama, Hoge on Thursday became the eighth player to open The Sentry with a round of 9-under or better since the event moved to Maui in 1999, with two of the previous seven going on to win (Ernie Els in 2003, and Jon Rahm in 2023).
Hoge hot a career-best equalling 10 birdies, after the third round of the 2023 Players Championship to also equal his best round at the event which came on the final day two years ago.
For Zalatoris (65) it was a second-consecutive 65 at The Sentry; matching his debut performance in 2023 when he finished T11 with rounds of 69-69-69-65
Also read: Scheffler to miss season-opening Sentry tournament in Hawaii
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