A decade after debut, Hideki Matsuyama on cusp of Masters win

A decade later, Matsuyama may be a day away from receiving his own.

After a one-hour rain delay, Matsuyama blitzed Augusta National's second nine to take a four-shot lead into the Masters' final round. His 65 - the first bogey-free round this week - gave him a 54-hole total of 11-under 205.

Four players - Xander Schauffele, Marc Leishman, Justin Rose and Will Zalatoris - are four shots back. Zalatoris, who didn't have PGA TOUR status at the start of the season, is seeking his first win. The remainder of the players in the top five are looking to end victory droughts. Schauffele and Rose last won in 2019. Leishman, who has struggled since the pandemic, had his most recent win in January 2020.

Matsuyama has waited longer than all of them. Like Jordan Spieth last week, he's trying to end a victory drought that's lasted since 2017. Matsuyama's last victory was at the World Golf Championship at Firestone, where he shot a final-round 61 to win by five. The following week, he was one shot back entering the final round of the PGA Championship. He bogeyed two of his final three holes to finish three back of Justin Thomas.

He hasn't won since. Matsuyama, for many years served as his own swing coach, recently enlisted the services of Hidenori Mezawa to help him reclaim his game. Matsuyama reached No. 2 in the world ranking but is now ranked 25th.

'This year's been a struggle,' said Matsuyama, who doesn't have a top 10 in 10 starts this year. 'Haven't really played my best. The last three years, you know, there's been different reasons why I haven't been able to win. But this year, starting early in the year, I have a coach with me now from Japan. It's been a great help, a great benefit. Things that I was feeling in my swing, I could talk to him about that, and he was giving me good -- he always gives me good feedback. He has a good eye.'

That 2017 PGA Championship remains Matsuyama's last top-10 in a major. Perhaps a return to Augusta National, where has finished in the top 20 in five of his last six appearances, is what he needed. Matsuyama remembers watching the Masters on TV as a young boy in Japan. Tiger Woods' chip-in on 16 in 2005 remains a special memory.