New Year, Hot Golf, Big Losses

2025 begins with a notable performance—and notable absences

Over the weekend, watching the broadcast of The Sentry, the first PGA Tour event of 2025, there were the usual elements of pro golf from Maui, Hawaii: short sleeves and long drives, blue waters and red numbers. Winner Hideki Matsuyama of Japan tore up the Plantation course at Kapalua, finishing 35 under par to set a record for lowest score in relation to par for 72 holes. Say what you will about the presence of par 5s and the absence of wind, the wide fairways and the big sweet spots, that’s going low. Or as runner-up Colin Morikawa, who finished three stroke back, * ! # @. The paint was just drying on Cameron Smith’s mark of 34 under, achieved at Kapalua just three years ago.

Matsuyama, 32, keeps adding to his reputation as the best to come west and compete regularly on the PGA Tour. This was his 11^th career victory, three more than the eight titles won by South Korea’s K.J. Choi. Matsuyama’s Sentry victory—on rounds of 65, 65, 62, 65—was his third within a year, the first of those coming in the 2024 Genesis Invitational, where he closed with a 62 at Riviera Country Club.

Having become the first golfer from Asia to win the Masters, in 2021, Matsuyama hasn’t been able to build on that significant history in subsequent major championships. His best results are fourth in the 2022 U.S. Open and sixth in the 2024 U.S. Open. Matsuyama doesn’t give up much in interviews with English-speaking reporters, in which he uses an interpreter. When Matsuyama was asked after his Sentry victory about goals, however, he of “unfinished business.” It wasn’t difficult to surmise that he was talking about more major success, of lifting another major trophy on a Sunday while wearing yellow, his favorite and finishing color. He marks his golf balls with “78,” his registration number at the 2021 Masters.

Matsuyama is known to experiment with different putters, most notably while warming up prior to the final round of the 2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship, where he had run the tables for 54 holes. He ended up sticking with that putter for the final 18, but it was an example of his tinkering. The putter he used at Kapalua was making its debut, and he wielded it well, including a 10-footer on the 72^nd hole to set the scoring record, an effort that prompted a fist pump from Matsuyama, who is often stoic regardless of how well he is playing.

On many of Matsuyama’s shots, it’s difficult to tell what he thinks about them, given his habit of taking one hand off the club during his follow through. Sometimes, you think he has just sent a drive into the next county and a few moments later a TV camera is showing it finishing in the fairway. But when he hammered his final tee shot at the Sentry, on the generous and very downhill 18^th hole, there was no post-impact theater. He quickly reached for his tee as his drive took off. The Kapalua fairways had been softer than usual much of the week, but this Matsuyama drive scooted once it landed, finishing 414 yards from where he launched it.

The four-football fields-plus hit seemed an appropriate close to the season-opener, which is always a bit of a balm for those looking on from colder climes, golfers whose games are shelved, or nearly so, until spring. I got an unexpected start to 2025 on Saturday, hitting a bucket at a newly renovated local driving range, where heaters were installed to facilitate winter business. That said, hot air does only so much when it’s 34 degrees and a northwest wind is howling into your face.

Still, despite some of the numbers the new fancy-pants gizmo was displaying—a flushed 5-hybrid was going 142; my most solid drive carried 197—it was a delight to make some swings that early in the new year. There is the promise that Hawaii temperatures will visit New England, that without multiple layers you’ll make a fuller turn, that a tee shot will scamper forward, that you’ll reach for a scorecard instead of a glove for your normally ungloved hand.

But for those of us who cover golf in one fashion or another, 2025 was going to start out with a chill no matter the thermometer reading. Two fixtures on the golf-writing beat have passed away in recent weeks—Jeff Babineau in early December and Steve DiMeglio as 2024 came to a close. “Babs” was 62, “DiMegs” was 63. Large and small, when it came to their physical statures, distinct personalities. Both skilled at a laptop on a tight deadline for a long time, respected by peers and story subjects alike. Jim McCabe wrote a touching essay about Jeff. Bob Harig and Michael Bamberger captured Steve in their pieces. They are missed.