Hideki Matsuyama is back home in his native Japan to defend his title at the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship. He won in storybook fashion a year ago, shooting a final-round 5-under 65 at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Chiba to claim the title by five strokes.
The 2021 Masters champion will receive a hero’s welcome when he tees off in the first round, but when he met the media on Tuesday the questions focused on rumors that have persisted for months that he has received a lucrative offer to join LIV Golf, the upstart league backed by Saudi Arabi’s Public Investment Fund.
Right out of the box, Matsuyama was asked to confirm his allegiance to the PGA Tour.
“Yeah, I’m a member of the PGA Tour. Never been prouder, especially last week at the Presidents Cup,” he said through his American translator Bob Turner. “Yeah, I’m fully committed to the PGA Tour, I’m a member.”
Next question.
But the media wasn’t done peppering Matsuyama about LIV. After being questioned about the future of the Zozo event in the Tour’s schedule, Matsuyama was asked if LIV golfers should receive points for playing on the renegade circuit.
“Personally, I think they should be able to,” Matsuyama said, “however, there’s a procedure that they have to follow, too, with the ranking points.”
That was the last question before the press conference shifted to Japanese only, of which a transcript was not made available of his answers.
World Ranking points have emerged as a key battle ground that could impact the future of LIV and whether more PGA Tour pros will be willing to make the leap to LIV. Most of the LIV players, outside of recent British Open winner Cameron Smith who is exempt for five years into all the majors, will need to depend on remaining in the top 50 in the world to qualify for future majors such as the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. In an effort to back door its way into ranking points for its members, LIV Golf announced a strategic alliance with the Mena Tour.
Matsuyama wasn’t the only Tour pro asked whether he thought LIV golfers should earn world ranking points for competing in 54-hole, no-cut, limited field shotgun-start events.
“I don’t know all the different regulations and how difficult it is to get World Ranking points. I just think at the end of the day, if you want to get World Ranking points, you obviously have to follow the process. And I think they’re obviously making an effort to get those points, but I don’t think it’s right to give them an exemption to just get points overnight,” Viktor Hovland said. “They obviously have to follow the process, whatever the process might be. But at the same time, they have some really good players over there and if some of those players drops outside the top-100 in the world, that’s not good for the World Rankings, either.
“So I don’t really know what the right answer is, but you can’t just make up new rules as you go.”
Xander Schauffele fielded the same question and gave a perfectly good non-answer.
“I don’t really know. I haven’t really thought a whole lot about it, to be completely honest,” he said. “I think it’s something that’s to be expected. They’re starting up their own tour and to legitimize themselves, they need world ranking points.”
Need world rankings? Yes. Deserve them? That’s still to be determined.
