Where Does Hideki Matsuyama Rank Amongst PGA Tour’s Other Great Players?

Following a dominant performance from start to finish at The Sentry, during which he set a new PGA Tour scoring record at 35-under-par, Hideki Matsuyama is a slam-dunk, no-doubt-about-it favorite for this week’s Sony Open, the only player with single-digit odds at a tournament he won three years ago.

The ceiling-to-floor range, though, remains a decent-sized cavern for Hideki, who’s obviously capable of beating the world’s most elite players when he has his best stuff but can look rather ordinary when the putter isn’t behaving and has been known to frustrate bettors when his balky neck issues lead to unforeseen withdrawals.

All of which got me thinking: If we were to play, “Would you rather?” with Matsuyama up against some of the game’s other superstars from right this very second through the end of the season-finale Tour Championship, there might quickly be some very difficult decisions.

I played this game with my co-host Andres Gonzales on the SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio postgame show after the final round of The Sentry, and it’s worth playing it again now, as we post the world’s fifth-ranked player up against some of the other biggest names.

Matsuyama or… Scottie Scheffler?

Nope. Don’t even think about it. Look, I don’t care if you’re the biggest Hideki fan in the entire world, unless the counter-proposal is Prime Tiger Woods, you can’t pick against Scottie here.

Matsuyama or… Xander Schauffele?

Same goes for this one. Can Matsuyama have a better year than Schauffele? Maybe Hideki claims his second career major at Oakmont or Quail Hollow – a few venues which should suit his game – while Xander struggles to replicate his two-major performance of a year ago? Sure, that’s entirely possible. I’ll still, however, lean toward the more known commodity in Schauffele, who might’ve only reached the tip of the iceberg as far as his best golf at the highest level.

Matsuyama or… Rory McIlroy?

Whether it’s recency bias or personality bias against a player who’s so stubbornly stumped for the PGA Tour over the past few years, I think Matsuyama would get a decent percentage of the public votes in this poll, though nothing close to the majority that McIlroy would receive. And rightly so, as the latter has proven that his A-game is at a gear that very few others will ever own – even if it hasn’t shown itself at a major championship in more than a decade.

Matsuyama or… Ludvig Aberg?

File this one under IYKYK. If you posed this question to casual golf fans who only tune in on a handful of occasions each year, they’d look at you funny while recalling that one guy has a green jacket and the other guy still gets his name mispronounced half the time. All of this is true, but those who live and breathe the game understand that Aberg is a next-level talent who’s only just started his journey toward world domination. I happen to be one of those Ludvig truthers and will continue to maintain he’s a generational player until he proves otherwise.

Matsuyama or… Collin Morikawa?

Alright, now we’ve got a healthy debate. After all, we’re just a few days removed from Morikawa playing incredible golf at Kapalua, only to lose by three strokes, which compelled him to say afterward of Matsuyama’s performance: “Excuse my language, but f—k, 35-under-par, that’s low.” It’s been 15 months since Morikawa’s last victory, though he remains one OWGR spot ahead of Matsuyama, who’s won three times during that span. That speaks to Collin’s high-level consistency, which is largely the reason I’d choose him in this one. It can be argued that Matsuyama’s ceiling is just slightly higher than that of Morikawa, but I believe Morikawa’s floor is a few notches higher. All of that said, if you wanted to vehemently argue that you’d take Hideki over the next eight months, I’d certainly listen.

Matsuyama or… Patrick Cantlay?

I skipped over higher OWGR rankings in Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood to get to Cantlay, who might be an even tougher matchup to analyze here than Morikawa. Each has struggled with his game at time over the past year, though Matsuyama’s done a much better job of bouncing back than Cantlay, who owns just a pair of top-10s in only 11 starts since last May, though admittedly eight of those have been inside the top-25. This question, however, isn’t about who’s played better in the past, but who will play better in the future. By thinnest of margins, I’m going to take Cantlay – less as some dissertation on his skills over those of Matsuyama and more of a selection of regression to the mean than anything else.

Matsuyama or… Wyndham Clark?

As we work our way down the list, the scales start to tip in Matsuyama’s favor a little more with each question and we now get to the point where he’d be an obvious betting favorite for greater success over his opponent for the rest of the season. Nothing against Clark, who’s a wildly talented guy and should tend to keep playing his best golf at the biggest events, but this one feels pretty firmly like a Hideki play for now.

Matsuyama or… Sahith Theegala?

I wrote earlier in this piece about biases and I’m an unabashed fan of Theegala’s game. He’s got a certain “it factor” which makes him simultaneously a fan fave and a player on the verge of massive success. Even the biggest Sahith fan, though, can admit that Matsuyama’s ball-striking is a tier better and his experience at majors offers an advantage over a guy who’s still trying to figure some of that out.

Matsuyama or… Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka?

I didn’t want to finish this piece without including some of LIV Golf’s best players, though I’m not exactly sure how we can weight them against each other, considering they’ll only play the same events four times during the year. If this question comes down to whether I’d choose Matsuyama to win a major or the other three individually, I think I’d certainly go with DeChambeau, almost certainly go with Rahm and probably go with Koepka, as his major championship profile makes every other player over the past decade pale in comparison.