NASSAU, The Bahamas — Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama edged Sweden’s Alex Noren in a one-hole playoff to claim the 2025 Hero World PGA Challenge, hosted by Tiger Woods at Albany Golf Club in The Bahamas.
Both players carded brilliant final-round 8-under 64s to post 22-under 266, before Matsuyama sealed the title with a clinical birdie on the first extra hole, Reuters reported.
In the playoff, Matsuyama hit a 9-iron that landed a couple of feet from the flag on the 18th hole. Noren had a 20-foot putt that slid left, and Matsuyama tapped in for the title.
When asked what his best shot of the tournament was, Matsuyama had a straightforward answer: the second shot in the playoff.
“It was a good week,” Austria’s Sepp Straka said after the round. “Came into the week really just trying to see where my game was after working on my swing a little bit in the offseason, working on a few things.
“Still feels a little bit like a work in progress, but it always is. So really happy with the progress we’ve made over the offseason and yeah, looking forward to continuing to work to the start of next season,” Straka added.
Matsuyama credited watching Noren, his playing partner, hit a similar shot to helping set up his eagle.
“No 10, to win we needed at least a birdie,” Matsuyama said. “Before he hits the second shot, Alex hits a really good shot and I was able to – yeah, I got the great imagination from Alex and was able to hit a great shot.”
Scheffler’s bid for a third straight win at the event unraveled on the back nine. Two shots off the lead at the par-5 11th, he found trouble and scrambled for bogey. A bunker-induced bogey at the par-3 12th followed, and Matsuyama’s 30-footer for birdie stretched the gap.
Even so, Scheffler closed with yet another top-five finish in a year that hasn’t seen him finish worse than tied for eighth since The Players Championship way back in March.
“I did a lot of good stuff,” Scheffler said. “Hit the ball pretty nice. Definitely need to be sharper around the greens, but that’s probably a bit of rust. But coming down here is always a good gauge to kind of see where you are around the greens because it’s pretty challenging, so felt pretty good.”
The victory caps a bookend season for Matsuyama, who opened the year by setting the PGA Tour record to par at The Sentry at Kapalua and now collects his second Hero World Challenge in Tiger Woods’ invitational after also winning in 2016.
Team Europe, meanwhile, sailed to a wire-to-wire victory at the Skechers World Champions Cup at Feather Sound Country Club in Clearwater, Florida.
Europe led the three-team competition by just 1.5 points after the first two days of play, but Colin Montgomerie of Scotland, Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland and Thomas Bjorn of Denmark opened the Sunday morning singles sessions with European victories totaling 34.5 points.
