Hours after Hideki Matsuyama made history as the first pro golfer from Asia to lift the Masters trophy and wear the winner’s green jacket, the phone calls began pouring into golf shops across Japan. Everyone was eager to get their hands on just about anything that they had seen on the local hero. Did the shop have his yellow-striped Descente shirt? His Asics shoes? His Dunlop clubs, balls and cap?
“We were overwhelmed,” says Yoshiaki Yasutake, deputy manager of Victoria Golf, in downtown Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. Within 48 hours, shoppers had managed to clean out the store’s entire inventory of Matsuyama-related gear and apparel.