PACIFIC PALISADES >> His first golf club came from a tree limb. It helped that his father was a woodcutter.
Torakichi (Pete) Nakamura kept whittling down his own scores until he became Japan’s finest player.
But when the 1957 Canada Cup came to Kasumigaseki Golf Club, Nakamura and Koichi Ono were supposed to be the servile hosts. The U.S. brought Sam Snead and Jimmy Demaret, Australia brought Bruce Crampton and Peter Thomson, and South Africa teamed young phenom Gary Player with Harold Henning.
Instead, Nakamura and Ono won the tournament. Won it laughing, by nine strokes over the Americans. Nakamura shot 14-under-par by himself. Player called him “the putting God.”
Herbert Warren Wind, writing in Sports Illustrated, compared it to the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline, when teenager Francis Ouimet dropped in from nowhere and beat the renowned Harry Vardon and Ted Ray.
The Japanese picked up clubs, and not off trees. Golf had finally circled the globe.
They were spectacular golf consumers in the 1980s, when their economy ran hot. Nowadays there are lots of abandoned courses that are being converted into wind farms or solar energy facilities. The prominent Japanese pros have never won a major championship. In this decade, players from 12 different nations have.
Hideki Matsuyama approaches that void. Ten days short of his 25th birthday, he has won decisively and often.
Las Vegas bookmakers rank Matsuyama a 10-to-1 shot to win the Masters. Only Jordan Spieth has shorter odds. Matsuyama is ranked No. 5 in the world and can go to No. 1 if he wins the Genesis Open at Riviera this week, depending on current No. 1 Jason Day and Dustin Johnson.
“It’s always been one of my goals,” Matsuyama said Tuesday, through interpreter Bob Turner. “As far as realizing if I’m one of the top players, maybe it hasn’t happened yet. I just keep grinding and practicing and playing hard.”
Last year Matsuyama was seventh in the Masters, fourth in the PGA and fifth at the Tour Championship. That was mere prelude. He won four of his next five events, including the WGC event at Shanghai, and finished second in the other.
Ten days ago he won in a playoff at Phoenix, as he did in 2016. In his honor, the NFL staged a big football game immediately afterward.
Matsuyama also has won the Memorial Tournament. When he was 19 he won the Taiheiyo Masters as an amateur, and twice won the Asian Amateur, which earned him invitations to the Masters. “That’s kind of what made it possible for me to be where I am today,” Matsuyama said.
“Hideki is one of the guys who goes under the radar, really,” Day said. “Nobody thinks about him too much and he’s always there. I’ve always thought he would be a dominant player. To be honest, he’s just as good as anyone else.”
All those wins and tributes have helped Matsuyama gain identity. He is dreadfully slow, and when he got angry at Doral and defaced the green by slamming his putter, Ian Poulter called him an “idiot,” via Twitter. Matsuyama apologized comprehensively. He even brought it up, unsolicited, on Tuesday.
He also is known for letting one hand go on the follow-through and gesturing sadly, as if he’d hit the ball into a neighboring county. Then the camera watches it plop down 15 feet from the cup.
“Sometimes how you’re playing, and the results, don’t coincide,” he said, smiling. “When I do a one-handed finish, sometimes it’s a missed shot.”
He has impressed everyone with his mental steel. The DUI candidates in the Phoenix galleries were not rooting for him this year or last. In 2016 he came from behind to tie and then beat the beloved Rickie Fowler. This year the yokels repeatedly made noise during his backswing as he was catching Ben An and then beating Webb Simpson.
Ryo Ishikawa was supposed to be the Japanese savior. He won a Japan Tour event at 15 and turned pro at 19. He has flamed out, at least temporarily. Matsuyama played college golf as long as he could — his campus in Sendai was damaged by the 2011 earthquake — and then joined the U.S. Tour as soon as he could. Those two moves, unusual for a Japanese player, have made a difference.
In 2020 the Olympics come to Tokyo. Kasumigaseki is the proposed golf venue, but the Japan Golf Council recommends otherwise because the club has no female members. That’s a shame, because Matsuyama won an Asian Amateur and a Japanese Junior there. It also might be the place to rekindle history, without the surprise.
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