Hideki Matsuyama has detailed the robbery he and his team experienced in London that saw his caddie and coach both have their passports stolen.
The Japanese star says he was out in London during a stopover between Paris and Memphis when his caddie’s bag was stolen at a restaurant.
It resulted in both his caddie and coach heading back to Japan to try and sort new passports, with his bagman Shota Hayafuji set to return to caddie duties in two weeks’ time at the Tour Championship.
“It was an unfortunate situation. Luckily I only lost my wallet, but Shota, my caddie, and the coach, lost their passports, and we’re trying hard now to get their visas back in line, and hopefully we can join us as a team as soon as possible,” Matsuyama explained.
“We were just on our way back from Paris. We were just going to spend one night in London, and it happened in downtown London.
“We didn’t even know it happened. We were just having a friendly dinner, and Shota was the first one, ‘hey, where is my bag?’ Of course it was frustrating, but we really didn’t know it happened. It was just kind of all of a sudden.
“Yeah, he just took it and ran.”
Matsuyama has Ryo Hisatsune‘s usual caddie Taiga Tabuchi on the bag for this week’s FedEx St Jude Championship, and he said he did a “great job” in their first round together, where the Olympic bronze medallist shot a five-under-par 65.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“I have a new caddie on the bag. Kind of reminded me of the first time Shota was on my bag. We kind of worked through a couple things,” he said.
“Really that was the main thing today is having teamwork with my caddie. Playing well, and I don’t know how Shota is going to take it, but we’ll work that out.
“My job is the same. It’s just play golf. I talk to my coach every night on the phone. I’ve got a great caddie. Taiga did a great job today, so we’ll just see how it goes.”
Matsuyama currently ranks 8th in the FedEx Cup standings so is safe in the knowledge that he’ll be at East Lake for the Tour Championship finale, where someone will lift the FedEx Cup and the $25m bonus.
