Most of Hideki Matsuyama’s Masters-winning round took place in the middle of the night in Japan. And yet, unlike American golf fans, Japanese fans were probably wide awake.
This was historic and kind of boring, meaningful but not particularly entertaining. It was, then, exactly how Matsuyama should have won his first major championship. He is the first Japanese man to win a major, and that is huge news in Japan, a densely populated, golf-crazy archipelago where people think nothing of installing a driving range in the nearest available sliver of land. Matsuyama himself is not known for his on-course charisma.