Matsuyama hangs on for 2-shot win at Hero WC

Wearing his trademark Sunday red shirt and black trousers, Woods began the final round with four pars, leaving a 20-foot birdie putt on the edge of the cup at the first hole then punching out of rough with the tip of his putter at two and sinking a three-foot putt. Rather, it mattered most that Woods finished 72 holes healthy and without any problems related to his thrice-operated back.

His return to competitive golf after an absence of almost 16 months – which included two surgeries to his troublesome back – was a success on nearly all counts as the positives far outweighed the negatives.

“If you think about it, I’ve gotten off to some really good starts the first three days”, said Woods, who has played the front nine in 10 under for the week.

“These are all things I’ve missed for a year and a half”.

Rickie Fowler walked onto the range at Albany Golf Club and spoke for a majority of golf fans worldwide. He led the field in double bogeys with six. Woods was 15th on 284 after a closing 76.

World No. 6 Matsuyama, who has won three of his last four starts worldwide, holed out from the fairway to eagle the par-four seventh on his way to a 19-under total of 197 for a commanding seven-shot lead.

Stenson also three-putted the 10th, costing him another chance to get closer.

The way Hideki Matsuyama is playing, he might wish the Masters started next week.

Instead, Woods couldn’t get up-and-down on No. 10 and made bogey. He rebounded with a bogey-free, 7-under 65 in the second round, showing glimpses of the dominating Woods of old and eliciting cries of “Tiger is back!” Johnson, who played sedately to post a 2under, was unlucky to come up with a double bogey on the last hole that saw him slip from 14 to 12-under for the championship. And one of my goals is I told our captain [Steve Stricker] I want to be more than an assistant [for the Presidents Cup]. “Even with Tiger, every time we set expectations, he exceeds them”. The recovery at times made it hard for him to walk and led him to wonder if he would ever play.

Of course he will need to smooth out some of those rough edges and cut out the mistakes, but the bogeys are nothing to worry about when you previously hadn’t played a tournament for 466 days.

“Quite frankly, there were some pretty dire times there where I just couldn’t move”.

The comeback showed flashes of brilliance, but Woods still has a long way to go.

“But these last five weeks I’ve been able to make some putts, and the more putts you make, the bigger the hole gets and the confidence grows and that’s played a big part in it”.

“I wasn’t going to compare him to the rest of the field”.

Matsuyama now has 12 victories worldwide, and while he became the first Asian to win a World Golf Championships title, a major is where players are measured. First of all, it’s extremely promising that after not playing since August 2015 he was able to complete four rounds, even if they weren’t all flawless.