Opinion | Hideki Matsuyama: Japan’s Olympic hype machine will need to tread carefully with mild-mannered Masters hero
- Master’s champion Matsuyama is known for being a retiring character in his homeland, but he may find himself at the forefront of an Olympic-sized PR push on his return
Ten years ago the golf world said hello to Hideki Matsuyama when the 19-year-old Japanese prodigy captured the amateur title at the Masters. But he told them he didn’t even want to be there. A native of Sendai, his hometown had been rocked only a few weeks earlier by the Great East Japan earthquake, a 9.0-magnitude tremor that unleashed a series of cataclysmic tsunami triggering the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown.
“Knowing such a hard situation back home, I am not sure if I should play at this Masters even at this moment,” Matsuyama told the golf media as he recounted the thousands of lives lost, the thousands still missing and the thousands living in makeshift shelters. He had been convinced by family and friends that his presence at the event would be inspiring and also ensure that the focus stayed on the plight of his home region.
The horrific images of the tsunami were impossible to ignore even in the insular world of golf and Matsuyama garnered universal admiration for the way he handled himself that week. A decade later, almost to the day, Matsuyama was back in Butler Cabin, this time in the big boy’s chair putting on the most sacred garb in sport as Masters champion.
