Hideki Matsuyama is on fire, and his great run through the late 2016 season continued on Sunday, winning the 2016 Hero World Challenge at Albany Golf Club in Bahamas by two shots over Henrik Stenson. His 18-under 270 finish won him the $1 million winner's share of the $3.5 million purse.
Matsuyama's win is the headline, but let's dig in deeper with a Hero World Challenge recap that looks at the storylines coming out of the tournament.
Matsuyama on a roll
The Japan-born star is on fire, winning four of his last five worldwide starts and finishing no worse than second (CIMB Classic, lost to Justin Thomas). He's won the Hero World Challenge, the WGC-HSBC Champions, the Japan Open and another Japan Golf Tour event. He's No. 6 in the Official World Golf Ranking, but he didn't move up by virtue of his win this week, though he is closer to catching world No. 5 Jordan Spieth.
Tiger Woods finishes 15th
Tiger Woods finished 15th out of 17 players who finished the 72-hole tournament, ending up at 4-under total and 14 back of Matsuyama. Woods closed with 4-over 76 on Sunday to drop down the leaderboard on a course where you can't shoot a round over par...ever. Woods was tied for the lead this week in birdies made -- with Matsuyama -- but he was hampered again and again by double bogeys and poor decision making. He has resumed his tendency to go left with the driver. The good news? Woods was healthy and his short game, by and large, looked good. While he did duff some chips, he did well from tight Bermudagrass lies.
Woods, J.B. Holmes and Jimmy Walker were the only two players in the field with multiple rounds over par this week.
Jordan Spieth struggled with the putter
The putter is typically the money club for Jordan Spieth, who was playing this week coming off a playoff win in the Australian Open. However, he struggled this week on the Bermudagrass greens, among the worst in the field for total putts for the week. Then again, that stat is a little misleading. Wanna know how? Hideki Matsuyama was also rated poorly in most putts for the week. That's because he hit so many greens and had so many birdie looks that he had a lot of two-putts also.
