When Hideki Matsuyama walked off the 15th green at TPC Scottsdale on Sunday, his path to a win was clear.
The 2021 Masters champion needed to par the final three holes on the Stadium Course to avoid a playoff with Chris Gotterup and take home his third WM Phoenix Open title. That Matsuyama found himself in that position was no small feat, given how he struggled off the tee in the final round. He hit just two fairways but still found a way to keep a clean card as he arrived at the 18th hole still nursing a one-shot lead over Gotterup.
Matsuyama had been fighting to keep things from unraveling all afternoon in Scottsdale, but they finally came undone on the final hole. It was a collapse that Matsuyama built the foundation for with his shaky play and that bad luck cemented.
First, he pulled his tee shot left into the church pew bunkers but got a favorable kick back into the center of the bunker. On-course reporter Dottie Pepper said Matsuyama should have no problem navigating the lip of the trap and getting his approach near or on the green. But Matsuyama’s second came out low and clipped the lip of the bunker, causing the ball to come up 43 yards short of the green.
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A shaky chip to a firm green left him 23 feet for par and the win.
That’s when events beyond Matsuyama’s control began to accelerate his crash.
Matsuyama sized up the lengthy but makable par putt. Just as he was preparing to take his putter back, a member of the gallery yelled, causing him to back off and restart his process. The par putt slid by the hole and Matsuyama marched toward a sudden-death playoff.
“Was grinding all weekend. Didn’t have my best stuff, but hung in there,” Matsuyama said through a translator afterward. “I wanted to avoid the playoff as much as I could, but I just hit a bad tee shot there in regulation at 18.”
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Matsuyama went back to the 18th tee box, and things continued to spiral.
After Gotterup put his drive in the fairway, Matsuyama readied to answer. But in the middle of his downswing, a loud noise pierced the desert air. Matsuyama ground his swing to a halt, looked at the crowd and had to once again regroup. When he finally unleashed his driver, it sailed left toward the church pew bunkers again. The drive barely cleared the water, but the ball hit a pole that was holding a gallery rope, causing it to ricochet back into the pond. Ten minutes later, Gotterup poured in a birdie putt to secure his second win of the 2026 season.
The noise that completed Matsuyama’s disintegration? An accidental chair drop by a member of the event staff, according to The Athletic‘s Gabby Herzig.
A spectators video from the tee box picks up the sound that caused Hideki to back off mid swing during the playoff.
After the round, Chris Gotterup said “I think on the tee box a chair fell. Of course that happens in the playoff.”
“It’s a good thing that there’s so many people,” Gotterup said of the hyped-up TPC Scottsdale crowd after he secured the playoff win over Matsuyama. “You hear it, but it’s all — you have so much going through your brain, it’s almost like white noise. Obviously, I think on the tee box, a chair fell. Of course, that happens in the playoff.”
A dropped chair might have put the final nail in Hideki Matsuyama’s WM Phoenix Open coffin, but he laid the groundwork for the collapse long before it hit the cement in Phoenix.
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For the week, Matsuyama ranked 70th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. He was T68 in driving accuracy, hitting just 44 percent of his fairways. But he was second in approach and third in putting. He Houdini-ed his way out of jam after jam that he created with an uncooperative off-the-tee game. For 71 holes, Matsuyama’s irons and putter were enough to patch over a glaring weakness.
But the bill finally came due on the 72nd hole, when his magic act was unable to conjure one final escape, setting the stage for an unintentional dropped chair to seal his fate.
“It’s disappointing,” Matsuyama said via translator after the loss. “Shock. Learn from it, and just get back up on the horse next week.”
As Hideki Matsuyama digested an unthinkable collapse, Gotterup’s emotions came pouring out after a win that raised him to No. 5 in the Official World Golf Rankings.
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“There’s just so many people that believe in me, and to be able to share it with them,” Gotterup said, fighting back tears. “I won’t be able to get through it. It’s just so much fun.”
