2023 Wyndham Championship: Top 10 power rankings at Sedgefield

Hideki Matsuyama is looking to add some sizzle to what’s been a solid, yet unspectacular 2022-23 PGA Tour season thus far.

The Japanese star continued to plug along last week at the 3M Open with a T-30th finish. It was his 11th result of T-32nd or higher in his last 12 starts.

Some of this stretch was while he was dealing with or recovering from a neck injury. With his health in better stead, Matsuyama is a candidate to finish strong.

He’s comfortably inside the top 70 to make the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He’s still got work to do to cinch up anything beyond that.

When it comes to ball striking, Matsuyama can be robotically accurate. In today’s bomb fests, that skill can be diminished.

At Sedgefield, it is of more value. His putting woes still remain, but this should be a good course fit.

Matsuyama is making his seventh trip to the Wyndham Championship. He peaked in 2016 with T-3rd (66-64-68-67) and took T-11th (69-68-64-65) in his next visit in 2018.

The 32-year-old has some incredible stats with his wedges. He leads the PGA Tour in average proximity from inside 100 yards (13’2”) and from 50-125 yards from the rough (19’). Matsuyama is second in approach proximity from 50-75 yards (8’1”) and from 50-125 yards (15’1”).

He ranks 19th in total strokes gained per round (1.058). He’s 13th in SG off-the-tee (1.165), 11th in SG approach-the-green (.398), and eighth in SG around-the-green (.398).

Matsuyama has as much pedigree as anyone in the field this week. He doesn’t get a ton of cracks on the PGA Tour without having to beat a top-10 player.