Hideki Matsuyama wins ZoZo Championship by five shots

Hideki Matsuyama wins ZoZo Championship by five shots

Masters Champion Hideki Matsuyama did wonders on home soil to grab his seventh PGA Tour title.

Matsuyama produced 5-under 65 in the final round, and with a total of 15-under, he comfortably clinched the ZoZo Championship by a five shots margin.

The American duo of Brendan Steele and Cameron Triangle shared the tied-second position after both finished their ZOZO Championship campaign at 10-under 270 at the Narashino Country Club in Chiba, Japan.

Collin Morikawa, the highest-ranked player in the competition, shot 5-under 275 over four days to tie for seventh place with World No. 38 Tommy Fleetwood and six other players.

Pre-tournament favourite Xander Schaufelle, who won the gold medal in Tokyo Olympics two months back, failed to impress the Japanese crowd this time as he only managed to shoot an even-par 280 to end at tied-28th.

Hideki Matsuyama

Talking about his experience of winning in front of the home crowd Matsuyama said, "It was one of my biggest goals to win in front of the Japanese fans here in this country as well."

He further added, "So happy that I'll be able to accomplish that. Also, in 2019 Tiger won the Masters and went on to win the ZoZo Championship, so I'm glad that I would be able to emulate that as well."

In 2019, Tiger Woods won the inaugural Zozo Championship, the first PGA Tour event in Japan. The 15-time major champion Tiger was not a part of this year’s tournament as he is still recovering from his tragic car accident that happened in Feb 2021.

In the ZoZo Championship's 78-player no-cut field, Hideki Matsuyama, the winner, received $1,791,000 from a total prize pool of $9.95 million. While the tied-second placed Brendan Steele and Cameron Triangle both earned $875,600.