AUGUSTA, Ga. – Hideki Matsuyama took a few minutes to scroll through his phone until he found the one photo that caused him so much anxiety, and the one that gave 31 men in green jackets deep admiration for the newest member of the Masters Club.
The photo shows a typewritten, one-page speech that Matsuyama delivered two years ago. As the Masters champion, he hosted the dinner upstairs in the Augusta National clubhouse for 30 champions and Chairman Fred Ridley.
It was written — and spoken — in English.
And it was memorable.
“I’ve known Hideki … I’ve kind of grown up with him out here,” said Jordan Spieth. They ended their first year as pros with Spieth at No. 22 in the world and Matsuyama at No. 23. “Having said that, I don’t know if I’ve had more than a five-word conversation with him. I’ve always wondered, ‘Does he really know English and is it more convenient not to?’
“So when he stood up and he started speaking, I was in shock,” Spieth said. “No notes. You could tell he had practiced. He cared about what he was saying. You could tell it was a proud moment. Even for that dinner, it was one of the more special moments.”
A proud moment for sure. Also a terrifying one for the host that Tuesday night who rarely is without an interpreter when he plays outside his native Japan.
“The same nervousness I had on the back nine Sunday,” Matsuyama said. “I had to remember the note I wrote. I wanted to talk a little more but that was the maximum I could memorize. It almost made my head go blank. That’s how nervous I was.”
Matsuyama says he probably spoke no more than a minute-and-a-half.
“It probably felt like 30 minutes to him,” Adam Scott said.
The Masters Club dinner — often referred to as the Champions Dinner — dates to 1952 when Ben Hogan organized dinner for the past Masters champions. Honorary memberships to one of golf’s most exclusive clubs were extended to co-founders Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, and since then to every chairman at Augusta National.
The dinner is for members only. No wives, no family, no agents — not even interpreters. The club publishes a photograph each year, but no video. And at buttoned-up Augusta National, none of the past champions use phones for video to post on social media.
Some of the best stories are those shared only by word of mouth.
Matsuyama’s speech is one of them.
“Everyone in that room would agree that Hideki’s speech was incredibly impressive,” Gary Player said. “He must have had it memorized because he delivered the most terrific words. We all stood up and gave him a standing ovation. It was the first standing ovation for anyone in all my years going to the Champions Dinner.”
Player’s first Masters Club dinner was in 1962. Golf’s greatest world traveler, he played a role that night by speaking in Japanese. Player prefers not to share what he said, but Matsuyama said he was honored by the gesture.
“It made me very welcome, but at same time ashamed I couldn’t speak much English,” Matsuyama said. “I always think if I could learn more English that would help on tour. But with this tour life, I don’t have time to study.”
His message that was mainly about what the Masters meant to Matsuyama, how his father taught him to play when he was 4 and the next year he woke at 5 a.m. to watch Tiger Woods win the Masters for the first time.
Matsuyama’s history with the Masters runs deep. He played for the first time in 2011 as the Asia-Pacific Amateur champion and was low amateur. Ten years later, he delivered his golf-mad country the ultimate prize as the first Japanese winner of the Masters.
“I’ve had a lot of great moments in that room,” said Zach Johnson, the 2007 champion. “That was one of the most … inspiring would be one word; reverent would be another; class. And when it comes to Hideki, that was humility at its finest.”
Matsuyama has risen as high as No. 2 in the world. When he won the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in February, it was his ninth PGA Tour title, the most of any Asian-born player.
And he remains a mystery to so many players, mainly because of the language barrier. Scott is among his closest friends, and Matsuyama did a podcast with him a few months after he won the Masters (subtitles were used and the conversation was seamless).
Even so, Scott was as impressed as anyone. He knows from experience how intimidating it can be in a room filled with golf’s greats — Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods and Fred Couples, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Watson.
“When I stood up at the end of the table and looked down there and saw who’s hitting there, it hit me a bit,” Scott said. “You have a tough moment to swallow and not get choked up.”
Imagine the feeling while speaking very little English.
“I’ve been fairly close to Hideki, maybe as close as anyone. And it was still amazing to hear from him how much it all really meant to him,” Scott said. “It humanized him with his peers. He’s just like us, how much he cares about the game and everything. It meant a lot to everyone in the room that he made the effort to do that.”
Dustin Johnson prefers the nerves of trying to win the Masters than what he felt the night he was the host. “I can’t remember exactly the speech, but it was not very long,” he said.
Next up is Jon Rahm on Tuesday night at Augusta, and he said the moment already has been “rent-free in my head.”
“Just the image of standing up and having everybody in that room look at me and having to speak to all these great champions, it’s quite daunting,” Rahm said.
Matsuyama preferred his first Masters Club dinner when he wasn’t the host. He sat with Scott and Player, and listened to Phil Mickelson “talk about a lot of things.”
He is playing well enough again to be considered a contender in the first major of the year, and Matsuyama would love nothing more that to be win another green jacket, and everything that goes with it. Well, almost everything.
“I really want to win the Masters again,” he said. “But I don’t want to do the speech again.”
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