Hideki Matsuyama was Masterful in Hawaii

“He was matching me yesterday shot for shot, and I felt like I was playing lights out, right? Like, yes, you could leave some shots out there, but you shoot 11-under on any golf course, you're going to be happy, right?” Morikawa said of Matsuyama who he was paired with in the last two rounds “Today he just never let up. Then you get to the third hole and the guy holes it. I just knew I had to be on top of everything, and just kind of let a few slip on that front nine.”

Morikawa and Ludvig Aberg leave Maui not wondering what happened but thinking they had a chance, if not for mistakes or a slow start.

For runner-up Morikawa, the wins have not come as quickly as he had hoped, winning his last time at the ZOZO in October 2023.

While Morikawa was solid for most of Sunday’s final round, he missed opportunities. He made a mistake or two that made Matsuyama’s path to victory easier than it should have been.

“Just going through the shots I left out there, there was a good handful that I wish I could have back,” Morikawa said after his sixth top 10 and second runner-up finishes at the Plantation Course. “When you don't get it done you kind of, that's where your mind goes to.”

The two-time major winner had the fifth-best 72-hole score ever at The Sentry, but it came at the wrong time.

Yet, Morikawa also knows that while he didn’t get it done on Sunday, his game showed solid signs of a winning product.

“I know there is a lot of positives, and it's going to take me a few hours or a day to get over it,” Morikawa said. “It's just, how do you clean things up for four rounds. It's tough to win, and I've seen it over this kind of past year, and like I said, I love being in this position, this is a position you want to be in, I want to keep giving myself chances, I know they're going to come, just when Zozo happened you just know if you keep knocking at the door and, you know, we're going to go on a roll pretty soon, it's just hopefully sooner rather than later. “

Outside of the Matsuyama win, the other impressive week was by Swedish wunderkind Ludvig Aberg.

After a pedestrian opening rounds of 69-70, the 25-year-old shot 65-64 on the weekend and moved to T5.

“Both today and yesterday was a lot better than the first two rounds,” Aberg said after his second trip to the Plantation Course. “It was nice to hit some shots, and especially off the tee I was a little bit better over the weekend. The fairways are quite forgiving, and you need to make a lot of birdies, which I was able to do both today and yesterday, so it was nice weekend of golf.”

Eleven birdies and two eagles, both in the final round, supported Aberg’s comments after a solid weekend that will make Aberg wonder what could have been if he didn’t struggle in the first two rounds.

Matsuyama will island hop from Maui to Honolulu to try to win again at Sony, where he defeated Russell Henley in the 2022 playoffs.

“I have goals within myself, and I'm not going to say it right here,” Matsuyama said after his win. “But there are unfinished business that I have set for myself that I still am striving to get to.”