Hideki Matsuyama WDs from the BMW Championship with a back injury

Hideki Matsuyama was arguably the hottest player in the world in August.

Less than three weeks ago, the 32-year-old won a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics. Then he got hacked – literally (!) – and won his next tournament, the FedEx St. Jude last week, moved him up to third place in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup points standings.

And after one round at this week’s BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado, Matsuyama was in second place after shooting a five-under 67 on Thursday.

But before he could play in Round 2, Matsuyama suddenly withdrew from the tournament, citing a back injury.

Fortunately for Matsuyama, the withdrawal will not affect his current FedEx Cup points standings. The best he could do this week was catch the second-ranked player, Xander Schauffele. Matsuyama is currently expected to stay in third place, even after receiving zero points in this week’s competition.

Scottie Scheffler is the top seed in the playoffs, and Schauffele will need a win this week to overtake him. Only the top 30 players in the FedEx Cup points standings will advance to next week’s PGA Tour season finale, the Tour Championship at East Lake.

While missing out on the $3.6 million winner’s share of this week’s $20 million purse if he’s in contention will certainly shake Matsuyama a bit, the desire to be fully healthy at next week’s Tour Championship is understandable. In East Lake, the winner will take home a whopping $25 million.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of women’s varsity golfers, Jessica knows how to beat everyone on the golf course. He can pass them through the office, too, where he is primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s first Style Issue, which began in February 2018. His first interview series, “A Round With,” released in November 2015, and appeared in both magazine and video form on GOLF.com.