The Asian team lacks fire at The Players 2023

The recent The Players still took place on the Stadium par72 of the TPC Sawgrass golf complex in Florida as usual since 1982. At the start, the Asian side had seven players, including Matsuyama from Japan, the rest from Korea.

After two rounds with the +2 cut, the list remained with Matsuyama, Im and compatriots Kim Si Woo, An Byeong Hun and Tom Kim.

When summarizing, Matsuyama finished fifth (point -9) while Im was in T6 (-8), and the cup and $4.5 million belonged to American colleague Scottie Scheffler with a -17 victory. 27-year-old Kim Si Woo won first place at The Players 2017, thereby becoming the youngest champion in the tournament's history. But this year, he returned to T27 (-5), one level higher than An (T35, -4).

21-year-old Tom Kim, from August to October 2022, won two cups on the PGA Tour with a faster pace of touching two titles than Tiger Woods. However, he only finished T51 (-2) in the first time he attended The Players with a position equal to major.

In the final round of The Players 2023, Matsuyama had a higher chance of finishing when he scored seven birdies to go up to -12 after 13 holes.

But on the 14th par4 hole, the major Masters champion, despite playing near the middle of the fairway, missed his hand on the second shot 204 yards from the flag due to the wrong wind direction. He let go of the stick and held his head in disappointment when he learned that he was negligent. The ball is off target, to the right, across the asphalt into the rough grass 31.5 meters away from where it needs to be.

The ball was still floating on the grass but the third shot only advanced 10.6 meters because the clubhead "caught the ground". "I thought the pitch would be hard but I didn't expect it to be so soft," said Matsuyama of the technical error at the end of the game.

Matsuyama hit the green on his fourth shot, two more putts and the job was done. Double bogey on hole 14 pulled him down to -10. For the next three holes, Matsuyama all finished because he only kept par.

On the par4 18 hole, he hit the right again, this time into the tree line, and the ball was on the dry pine layer. The 31-year-old Japanese player escaped on the third shot but failed to reach the green, leading to a late-round bogey and a -9 finish. Matsuyama received $ 1,025 million for the top 5 position. This is also his best achievement through eight times getting tickets to The Players.

Matsuyama has played professional golf since 2013, so far, winning eight cups on the PGA Tour, including the major Masters 2021.