2022 Waste Management Phoenix Open: Top 10 power rankings

It seems like a safe bet to pencil in Hideki Matsuyama for the Waste Management Phoenix Open power rankings.

Save for a withdrawal in 2018, Japan’s top golfer has made the cut all seven times with two wins, a runner-up, a top-five, and two top-20s.

The stretch from 2014-17 when he finished T-4th (68-67-68-69), T-2nd (69-71-63-67), first (65-70-68-67), and first (63-68-68-66) seems impossible to top.

Even the time he withdrew, he was in position to make the cut after a first-round 2-under 69. A wrist injury forced him to bow out.

Matsuyama has been through plenty of battles at TPC Scottsdale.

He was just one shot away from forcing a playoff in 2015 and needed a playoff to down fellow horses for the course, Rickie Fowler and Webb Simpson, the next two years.

I haven’t even mentioned yet that the 29-year-old is already a two-time PGA Tour winner this season.

Matsuyama won on home turf last fall at the Zozo Championship. He did it again in dramatic fashion last month by hitting one of the shots of the year to seal a playoff victory over Russell Henley. His towering fairway wood set up a comfy birdie on the par-5 18th hole at Waialae.

Matsuyama followed it up with a T-30th a couple of weeks later at the Farmers Insurance Open. It was his fifth-straight made cut and 11th in the last 12, not counting a withdrawal at the 2021 Rocket Mortgage Classic.

He ranked 17th last season in SG approach (.614) and is 18th (.693) this season.

Leave it to one of the more soft-spoken guys on tour to play so well at a rip-roaring event like the Phoenix Open. After a career “worst” T-42nd here last year, I envision a red-hot Hideki putting on a stripe show in the desert just like old times.