When Hideki Matsuyama walked off the 15th green at TPC Scottsdale on Sunday, his path to victory was clear.
The 2021 Masters champion had to par the final three holes on the Stadium Course to avoid a play-off with Chris Gotterup and take home his third WM Phoenix Open title. That Matsuyama found himself in that position was no small feat considering the way he struggled off the tee in the final round. He only hit two fairways, but still found a way to keep a clean card when he got to the 18th hole and still had a one-stroke lead over Gotterup.
Matsuyama had been fighting all afternoon in Scottsdale to keep things from falling apart, but on the final hole they finally came undone. It was a collapse for which Matsuyama laid the foundation with his shaky play and which reinforced the bad luck.
First he pulled his tee shot to the left into the pew bunkers, but got a favorable kick back into the middle of the bunker. Course reporter Dottie Pepper said Matsuyama should have no problem navigating the edge of the trap and getting his approach close to or on the green. But Matsuyama’s second came out low and hit the edge of the bunker, sending the ball 43 yards short of the green.
At that point, events beyond Matsuyama’s control began to precipitate his crash.
Matsuyama took the long but doable par putt. Just as he prepared to take his putter back, a member of the gallery shouted, causing him to retreat and begin his process again. The par putt slid past the hole and Matsuyama marched toward a sudden-death playoff.
“I was grinding all weekend. I didn’t have my best stuff, but I kept at it,” Matsuyama said afterward through an interpreter. “I wanted to avoid the play-offs as much as possible, but I just hit a bad tee shot there when I was 18.”
Matsuyama went back to the 18th tee box and things continued to spiral.
After Gotterup put his drive into the fairway, Matsuyama prepared to answer. But in the midst of its downward movement, a loud noise pierced the desert air. Matsuyama stopped his swing, looked at the crowd and had to regroup again. When he finally let go of his driver, he sailed left again towards the pew bunkers. The drive barely made it out of the water, but the ball hit a pole holding a gallery rope, causing it to bounce back into the pond. Ten minutes later, Gotterup holed a birdie putt to secure his second victory of the 2026 season.
The sound that completed Matsuyama’s disintegration? An accidental chair fall by a member of the event staff, according to The Athletics‘s Gabby Herzig.
Spectator video from the tee box picks up the sound that caused Hideki to withdraw mid-swing during the play-off.
After the round, Chris Gotterup said: “I think a chair fell on the tee box. Of course that happens in the play-offs.”
(🎥 @austin_garcia13)pic.twitter.com/m40NKmiZHP
—GOLF.com (@GOLF_com) February 9, 2026
“It’s a good thing there are so many people,” Gotterup said of the excited TPC Scottsdale crowd after securing the playoff victory over Matsuyama. “You hear it, but it’s everything: there’s so much going through your head, it’s almost white noise. It’s clear that a chair has fallen on the tee box. That happens in the play-offs of course.”
A fallen chair might have put the final nail in Hideki Matsuyama’s WM Phoenix Open coffin, but it laid the groundwork for the collapse long before it hit the cement in Phoenix.
This week, Matsuyama ranked 70th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. He was T68 in driving accuracy and hit only 44 percent of his fairways. But he finished second in approach and third in putting. He mini-ed his way out of jam after jam he created with an uncooperative off-the-tee game. For 71 holes, Matsuyama’s irons and putter were enough to repair a glaring weakness.
But the bill finally came down to the 72nd hole, when his act of magic failed to produce one final escape, setting the stage for an inadvertently dropped chair to seal his fate.
“It’s disappointing,” Matsuyama said through an interpreter after the defeat. “Shock. Learn from it and just get back on the horse next week.”
As Hideki Matsuyama dealt with an unthinkable collapse, Gotterup’s emotions flowed after a victory that moved him to No. 5 in the Official World Golf Rankings.
“There are just so many people who believe in me and want me to be able to share this with them,” Gotterup said, fighting back tears. “I can’t get through it. It’s just so much fun.”
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