Hideki Matsuyama is notorious for trying new putters but almost never putting a new one in play. Now it appears that the former Masters champion has cracked the code. Bring a lot of putters with him, choose a new one and walk off with a win.

Matsuyama won the season-opening Sentry tournament using a new Scotty Cameron by Titleist 009 center-shafted tour prototype. The move came after he came to Maui with four putters and decided on that one. The process and result is eerily similar to his win last fall at the FedEx St. Jude Championship where he arrived in Memphis with six putters and opted to switch to a Scotty Cameron by Titleist Craftsman Squareback tour prototype blade. He then putted his way to the first leg of the PGA Tour playoffs, notching a one-stroke victory at TPC Southwind.

Matsuyama was typically non-expansive about the switch, but the results were clear. Thirty-three birdies and two eagles against just a pair of bogeys for the week. He ranked third in strokes gained/putting, second in putts per green in regulation and second in feet of putts made on his way to setting the PGA Tour scoring mark in relation to par at 35 under.

Never highly regarded for his putting, Matsuyama changed that narrative—at least for this week—as he made seven putts over 20 feet on the week, including trio over 30 feet.

Matsuyama had other clubs that worked, too, including his Srixon ZX5 LS Mk II driver with a Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8 TX shaft. The club worked well enough to put Matsuyama on the plus side of strokes gained/off the tee and while his average driving distance only ranked 21st in the field, he did unleash one an impressive 414 yards at the last.

Impressive. That’s a good word to sum up Matsuyama’s week in Hawaii.

The clubs Hideki Matsuyama had in the bag at the 2025 Sentry

Ball: Srixon Z-Star XV Arrow

Driver: Srixon ZX5 LS Mk II (Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8 TX), 9.5 degrees

3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10, 15 degrees

5-wood: Cobra King Radspeed Tour, 17.5 degrees

Irons (4-9): Srixon Z Forged II

Wedges: Cleveland RTX4 Forged prototype (48, 52, 56, 60 degrees)

Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist 009 CS tour prototype

Main Image: Maddie Meyer

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Here’s the prize money breakdown for each golfer at the 2025 The Sentry

Hole 13: Matsuyama at -33

Good evening from Durham, North Carolina, six time zones east and 40 degrees colder than Kapalua, where on my computer screen Hideki Matsuyama is chasing history. Specifically, he’s hot on the heels of the PGA Tour scoring record, measured to par. It’s not exactly a massive surprise that somebody’s making a run in Hawaii—there have been six players who finished a 72-hole tour event at 30 under or better, and five of those have come at Kapalua’s Plantation Course at this very tournament (the outlier is Dustin Johnson, who reached 30 under at TPC Boston in 2020). Remarkably, three of the five Kapalua gems came in 2022, when Cam Smith emerged just ahead of his competitors at 34 under. That scintillating four-day stretch remains the tour record, even though Smith departed for LIV not long after.

Today, that could go down. After a Saturday 62, Hideki Matsuyama has shown no signs of slowing down, and this whole thing started to feel a lot like destiny in the last two holes, when he buried a 30-footer for birdie on 11 and followed that with a 21-footer on 12. While Kapalua is quite clearly an easy course by tour standards, those are not easy putts to make, and as I sit here and type it seems clear that there’s some Hawaii magic at play.

And yet, Collin Morikawa is still just four back! The range of outcomes for Hideki, from history to a painful second, is still pretty wide.

The minute I typed that last sentence, Morikawa began to yell “no, NO!” at an errant approach into the green. Sorry, Collin, my jinx works fast.

Hideki followed with a poor approach of his own from 90 yards, and he’ll need another bomb to keep the score moving into the stratosphere … which he does not get, settling for par. In other news, it is very windy on the water.

Two other thoughts: it blows my mind that Sungjae Im hasn’t won on tour since 2021, and also, I will never stop mispronouncing Thomas Detry’s last name as Dee-try.

Hole 14: Matsuyama at -33

Ludvig Aberg just closed out his tournament with a 63, good for fourth place (for now), and this seems like a year where he could win three events and a major … although he might need a few more kitchen accidents from Scottie Scheffler.

Hideki’s drive was a pull, but it avoided the bunker by a few feet and looks like it’s sitting up in the rough. That’s good news, and so is the fact that this is an incredibly short hole, meaning he’s got just 73 feet to the green. That’s the secret sauce of Kapalua, I think—there are a ton of holes where it’s impossible to imagine a player with any form making bogey.

And folks, we’ve got a potential birdie alert: his pitch from the rough was brilliant, running past the hole where a slope funnelled it six feet from the hole.

Elsewhere, Will Zalatoris has played a wrong ball, which seems like an astounding mistake for a PGA Tour pro to make. It also screwed Cam Davis going next, who didn’t even consider that Zalatoris might have made the mistake, also played the wrong ball, and got penalized. The two-stroke demerit was particularly brutal for Davis, who just fell out of the top five.

Back to the main action, where Morikawa makes his birdie with a sandy up-and-down, and Matsuyama … misses by an agonising inch on the right. NOOOOO.

We’re now in tense times. There are some extremely birdie-able holes left, but some actual tough ones too. One bogey probably ends the dream, but he’s also a single birdie from reaching a score that only one man has seen before. And guess what: Morikawa is now in position to be the eighth player to post a score of 30 under for 72 holes. Wild!

Maddie Meyer

Hole 15

OK, here’s the big chance. As Dan Hicks just pointed out on tv, it’s the second-easiest hole by today’s scores, and pretty much everyone is making birdie or better at this 551-yard par-5. The field is at 35 under on this hole today alone, which coincidentally is exactly the number Hideki is chasing. And might I add, the hole is beautiful, with the sparse cook pines (I think that’s what they are, anyway) and mountains in the background.

Hideki and Morikawa both crush their drives. That’s step one. I’m getting the feeling we’re about to see 34 under …

… before we get there, though, Justin Thomas carded a 63, which is excellent to see, and Keegan Bradley just finished at 21 under, which continues the comedy of an out-of-nowhere pick for Ryder Cup captain making a serious run at qualifying for the team. I still can’t fathom how this is going to work logistically.

Uh-oh. Hideki just pushed the hell out of his second. But although I say “uh-oh,” this is Kapalua, so all it means is that instead of an eagle putt he has a relatively simple pitch and the absolute worst he can make is par.

A bigger problem is that Morikawa just reached in two and will have an eagle putt. I think the man is officially charging.

Matsuyama’s pitch is just so-so, to 10 feet, and if Morikawa can bury this eagle, we might have a one-shot ballgame, and two guys within range of the tour scoring record.

He can’t, but it’s a tap-in birdie, and now this birdie putt feels pretttttty big for Hideki … he’s backing off, studying it from every angle, the tension’s building … and it’s about an acre left. No good. It’s a two-shot ballgame, folks.

On a side note, you can count on one hand how many greens Morikawa has missed, which seems to indicate his irons are among the best in the game yet again, and when that happens, the man is usually winning a major or coming close.

Hole 16: Matsuyama at -33

The announcers have been talking about Morikawa’s huge collapse at the 2023 Sentry quite a lot, and that mojo seems to have caught up with him, as he drives it straight into the fairway bunker. Hideki has the same potential pitfall, distance-wise, but he plays a terrific draw between the bunkers and is sitting pretty.

Elsewhere, Jhonattan Vegas, age 40, just finished with a birdie to grab solo fourth. His 3M Open win last year felt at least a little fluke-y, for sure, but maybe this is the first step in showing that he’s got some moves left.

As if proving the theory that there are no actual punishments in Kapalua, Morikawa is safely on the green with an okay look at birdie, fairway bunker be damned.

BUT HIDEKI’S IN TIGHT!!! From 98 yards, he landed it just past the hole, missed the flag by less than a foot, and spun it back to four feet.

Matsuyama answers!@HidekiOfficial_ nearly jars it to extend his lead to 3 at No. 16.

GOLF Channel pic.twitter.com/SmnJHcOfP8

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 6, 2025

This one HAS to go … but we’ll wait a bit, as first Morikawa has to give a little too much respect to his downhill bender and settles for par, and then Detry blows a birdie putt way past, and THEN the stage is set, and FOLKS HE’S AT 34 UNDER!!

Only one other person has ever been there, at this very course, and with another birdie in the last two holes Matsuyama will be in uncharted waters. Plus, it seems very much like he has the tournament under wraps.

Hole 17: Matsuyama at -34

Dan Hicks was just talking about how Matsuyama is very succinct with the press, which is an understatement, and while I like this play-by-play format for a moment like this, I’ll also own up to the fact that part of my motivation was saving myself from having to make a story from the Matsuyama transcript.

While we wait for their tee shots, I have to ask: has anyone solved the mystery of Cameron Young? (And no, I don’t mean the mystery of why his full name appears on the leaderboard, which I asked yesterday in an offhand way on Twitter and which now has 1,800 likes and almost 400,000 views somehow … the internet is very weird.) I mean the mystery of who this guy is, why he struggles under pressure, or what makes him tick. Does he hate golf? Love golf, too much? In some ways he feels like the most inscrutable guy on tour.

OK, now we move to the longest par-4 in the history of the universe (or something close to it). Hideki, needing a solid drive, finds the rough but in a way that shouldn’t kill him. And despite the absurd hole length, 548 yards today, it’s so far downhill that he’ll only have 152 left.

On a personal note, I have been having trouble getting any distance off the tee this winter (the cold air is murdering me) and it’s actively offensive to see the graphic showing Hideki’s carry distance on that drive: 342 yards. That should be illegal.

Morikawa and his caddie J.J. Jakovac just had a long conversation about club selection on the approach, and every bit of it was fascinating. I could watch caddie convos all day. Can we just mic these guys up at every tournament and have a dedicated YouTube channel for compilations? It’s a billion-dollar idea.

Ooooh, Hideki just hit a quietly brilliant approach that landed maybe ten yards short of the green and trickled on. He didn’t leave himself the easiest putt—it’s 18 feet—but barring a disaster he’s going to go to 18 with a serious chance at the record.

Meanwhile, this is not Thomas Detry’s fault, and it’s not the tour’s fault, but when I’m focusing on watching Hideki and Morikawa fight it out, it’s incredibly annoying to have a third wheel interrupting the action. Again, nobody’s fault! But I can’t help wanting the rules officials to pull him aside and make him wait a hole.

Hey, remember when I said, barring disaster? Matsuyama just blew his birdie putt unforgivably far past the hole, turning a routine par into a stress test. Six feet! But, thank goodness, he sneaks it in the right side.

We’re going to 18 with the record on the line!

Maddie Meyer

Hole 18: Matsuyama at -34

This famous par-5 is, like 17, absurdly long at 678 yards. Nevertheless, you can make birdie here; Cam Davis did it, Maverick McNealy did it, and nobody at the top of the leaderboard seems to be making worse than par. And what a view, looking down at the Pacific! Golf Digest editors, if you’re reading this, please send me there.

And YES, the drive by Matsuyama is a bomb! As you might imagine from the gaudy length, this hole too is downhill, so the final tally on the drive is 414 yards, eating off a great big chunk of that huge number. He’s still got 244 left, though, so it’s not like this is a gimme birdie. What will he do? Lay up? A classic Hideki 3-wood where he looks furious after the swing but it lands 10 feet away? Something else?

I might be alone on this, but for me? Harry Hall has to drop the flat cap. It’s too much like old-timey cosplay, a little try-hard to feel natural. Moving on …

Out of nowhere, while we wait in the fairway, Sungjae Im now has a shot at 30 under with an eagle putt on the green … and runs it just past. Tantalizing! And it’s tied for the fourth-best score ever at this course, at least until Morikawa and Hideki finish in five minutes.

Matsuyama is now one (admittedly exceptional) approach from basically guaranteeing himself the record. If he can only reach the green … which Morikawa just did, setting up a plausible eagle chance. And while we’re all thinking about the record, Hideki is also just one shot away from inviting the dreaded three-shot swing into the realm of reality. And here we go …

… and he plays it super safe, to the right side, a few yards off the green. On one hand, it just won him the tournament, because he’s never making bogey from there. Which is obviously the most important thing if you’re not me, blogging about the scoring record. On the other, I am that guy, and I now put his chance at the outright record at around 50 percent, where if he was anywhere on the green, it would be way higher. The man is keeping us on tenterhooks.

And the tenterhooks still have us after the chip, which is a solid B+ but leaves him with eight feet left for birdie. It all comes down to a single putt. What a dream. Morikawa misses his eagle, which theoretically gives Hideki the freedom to give it a run, knowing a three-putt won’t kill him. And now it’s time … one putt for the outright record.

IT’S GOOD! HE HITS HIT! WE’VE GOT A NEW RECORD HOLDER, FOLKS!!!!! A;SLDKJFWA;LKEJ;ALJF;SDAJAKJDF!!!!!!

Hideki sets the PGA TOUR score-to-par record pic.twitter.com/MV0YBRDkSV

— Golfbet (@Golfbet) January 6, 2025

“I thought maybe it was like 34, 35 [under], I wasn’t sure, but I kind of thought, you know if I’m thinking like that, it probably won’t go in, but it did go in, and so I’m glad it did,” he said.

What a ridiculous tournament this man just had, with a Sunday 65 as the cherry on top! I don’t care how easy a course is, averaging a birdie almost every two holes is absurd. Nobody on this tour has ever done better, to par, and it ended with incredible fireworks. What a player, and what a terrific way to start the PGA Tour season.

Main Image: Maddie Meyer

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Scottie Scheffler, the World No. 1, missed out on the tournament due to a hand injury sustained during Christmas dinner, which left the field more open than usual. Xander Schauffele, a two-time major winner in 2024, was headlining the field in Scheffler’s absence.

Defending champion Chris Kirk, who won in 2024 by edging Sahith Theegala by one stroke, returned to defend his title. Other notable absences include Jon Rahm and Cam Smith, who both joined LIV Golf. While Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, also missed out as they plan to start their 2025 seasons on the DP World Tour.

The winner of the tournament, Hideki Matsuyama, showed up and steamrolled the field shooting 65-65-62-65 to set a tournament-record 35-under-par 257 total to top Collin Morikawa by three shots. He took home $3.6 million for his 11th PGA Tour victory and 700 FedExCup points.

Here’s the prize money breakdown for each golfer at the 2025 The Sentry

Main Image: The Sentry / X

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The Sentry marks the beginning of equipment release season for numerous brands. Pros show up with the newest gear in their bags. Spy photos from Kapalua turn into full-fledged retail releases — and away we go. It’s a cadence gearheads are used to experiencing.

But things are different this year. Instead of waiting until the Tour’s season-opening event to offer a peek at what’s coming down the pipeline, nearly every manufacturer chose to move up the tour releases. The list includes Callaway, Cobra, Ping, Srixon and TaylorMade.

In other words, practically the entire industry. With one exception.

On Monday, Titleist announced it was unveiling a GT280 mini driver to pros in the field at Kapalua that’s sure to raise some eyebrows. The release is a massive detraction from Titleist’s usual metalwoods release schedule that began back in June when GT drivers and fairway woods were first introduced at the Memorial.

It’s safe to assume GT280 isn’t your average metalwood, which is why Titleist opted to do a separate tour launch. The beginning of its tour validation process will offer pros the opportunity to test the mini product and put it in play. As for the name, it’s plausible the 280 denotes the head size — 280cc’s.

Titleist refrained from offering specifics behind the design but did confirm several staffers, including Cameron Young and Will Zalatoris, worked with R&D to design another option at the top of the setup. Both Young and Zalatoris have been working on 13-degree heads that can be used off the tee and from the fairway.

While GT280 is a new addition to the GT lineup, a mini driver prototype has been floating around on tour since March when a TSR prototype 2-wood surfaced at the Players Championship. Unsurprisingly, Young was the first pro to put it in the bag.

Mini drivers have been growing in popularity since Phil Mickelson deployed Callaway’s Phrankenwood at the 2013 Masters, and a 13-degree X Hot 3Deep as his “driver” en route to winning the Open Championship later that same year.

The mini isn’t a club for everyone, but it’s gained enough traction in recent years to become a credible secondary option off the tee. Tommy Fleetwood and Bryson DeChambeau both carry a mini driver in their regular equipment setups, due in large part to the greater variability of launch and extra spin when compared to a 460cc driver. A larger profile than a smaller-headed 3-wood adds an additional layer of off-center forgiveness.

Similar to the TSR prototype 2-wood, the GT280 boasts a deeper profile than even the larger “Plus” fairway wood with white scoring lines on the face. Earlier this year when Young put the TSR 2-wood in play, Titleist tour rep JJ Van Wezenbeeck said the lines offered the ideal visuals for a less-than-driver club.

“Putting the score lines on it with the fairway shaping and having the leading edge sit tighter to the ground with that bigger volume was the mix we were looking for,” he said. “This isn’t a one-trick pony.”

The GT280 is a tour-only offering at the moment, but if it’s out amongst the pros, it’s very likely it’ll be coming to retail in 2025.

Main Image: Titleist

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Here’s the prize money breakdown for each golfer at the 2025 The Sentry

As the first design collaboration by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, it unveiled their joint admiration for old-style courses. The blind drive on the fourth, the cut-the-corner drives on the fifth and sixth are all based on tee shots found at National Golf Links. So, too, are its punchbowl green and strings of diagonal bunkers. It’s also a massive course, built on a huge scale to accommodate the wind and the slope and the fact that it gets mostly resort play, Coore says.

So it’s a big course. But what sets it apart in my mind are the little things. When I played the course years ago with Coore, it took only one hole for me to appreciate one of its subtleties. We were on the tee of the par-3 second, an OK hole but nothing riveting, nothing like the canyon-carry par-3 eighth or the ocean-backdropped par-3 11th. The second sits on a rare flat portion of the property. The green sits at a diagonal, angling left to right, and there’s a string of bunkers staggering up the right side of the green. The first bunker appears to be directly in front of the green but is actually 40 yards short of it. When pointed out to me, I called it Gingerbread. Bill disagreed.

“The wind quarters off your left shoulder from behind you,” he pointed out. “The green goes ever so slightly away from you from front to back and left to right. It is a very obvious situation, given the wind condition and the angle of this green; you know you should hit a shot left-to-right to fit the shot with the green.

“But if the flag is at the front, there’s no way to fly that ball all the way to the hole and stop it close. You may stop it somewhere on the green, but nowhere within a reasonable putt. So you have to aim short of the green. They maintain the approaches so beautifully over here—firm approaches mowed at probably a quarter of an inch; you can literally putt from out there if you choose to do so.

“But that brings that first bunker in play,” Coore continued. “When the flag is up front, you are absolutely required to land your ball just over that first bunker in order to get it to bounce and run to that front pin position.”

Dave Sansom

Kapalua’s second is a simple-looking hole with a great deal of thought behind it. I suppose a lot of present-day architects would not have placed that forwardmost bunker on the hole, in the interests of playability for high-handicap resort golfers. But most of the old-time architects probably would have used such carry bunkers, especially in the days before irrigation, when greens were hard as a rock and every approach shot had to be bounced aboard.

Another reason why studying the history of architecture might just help your score.

Main Image: Dave Sansom

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