Japan's Matsuyama fires blistering 65 to lie one off lead at The Sentry

A new putter to coincide a brand New Year, but the same old mercurial Hideki Matsuyama showed up at the PGA Tour’s season-opening event, The Sentry.

The 32-year-old Japanese star, who was Asia’s top performer on the PGA Tour in 2024, fired a superb 8-under 65 for joint-second place after the first round at the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Hawaii on Thursday.

With a new putter — a Scotty Cameron center-shaft blade putter — in his bag, Matsuyama brilliantly hit an eagle, seven birdies and one bogey to trail early leader Tom 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 an unprecedented 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, which is also played on the holiday isle. He has three top-5s at Kapalua (T3/2015, 2/2017, T4/2018).pga 

“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.

“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 Hole Nos. 5-8 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 5-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 another victory. “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 success 3s. “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 enjoying 11 consecutive seasons of finishing in the top-50 of FedExCup standings on Tour.

“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.”