OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. – One of the PGA Tour’s toughest tests of the year made it clear that par would be a great score.
Leave it to Hideki Matsuyama to sink a 65-foot birdie putt on his final hole Thursday at Olympia Fields Country Club to lead the BMW Championship.
Matsuyama, the Japanese player who has gone three years since his most recent victory, birdied two of his last three holes for a 3-under-par 67, one of only three rounds under par on a course that was long, tough, firm, fast – and nothing like the low-scoring past two weeks in the Wyndham Championship to close the regular season or The Northern Trust to open the FedEx Cup playoff.
Tyler Duncan, just outside the pivotal top 30 players in the points standings as he tries to earn his first trip to the season-ending Tour Championship, made an eight-foot par putt on his last hole for a 68. Canada’s Mackenzie Hughes, one of only four players who reached 3 under at any point in his round, was another shot behind.
“I’m not sure really what I had going today, but that last putt, the long putt that went in, very happy with that one,” Matsuyama said. “So we’ll remember that one.”