Just because 20 of the world’s best golfers convene for a no-cut contest during the holiday season doesn’t mean that there won’t be some drama to determine the champion. After all, $1 million of a $5-million prize fund was reserved for the winner of the Hero World Challenge and Official World Golf Ranking points were guaranteed for all. So it shall be.

With a birdie on the only hole needed in a playoff, the par-4 18th at Albany GC, Hideki Matsuyama defeated Alex Noren to win. It was the first playoff in the 10 editions of the tournament since Albany debuted in 2015.

Both internationals closed with field-low 64s on Sunday to post 22-under 266. Matsuyama’s score was blemish-free and featured an eagle hole-out from 116 yards at the par-4 10th. Noren covered a lone bogey-5 at the third hole with nine birdies, including a conversion from 18-and-a-feet at the last to force overtime.

Matsuyama hadn’t appeared at Albany since 2018, but he prevailed in 2016, so he joins Viktor Hovland (2021, 2022) and Scottie Scheffler (2023, 2024) with multiple victories on the current track. This result also punctuates a rise in tiptop form, most recently fueled by a T7 at the Genesis Championship in South Korea and a T5 at the Dunlop Phoenix in his native Japan. However, until this heater, Matsuyama hadn’t recorded a top 10 anywhere since opening the year with a victory at The Sentry. In FanDuel’s outright market pre-tournament, he was seventh-shortest at +1900.

Alex crossed

While Noren put himself in position to win with the lengthy birdie to tie at the buzzer, it presented like a bonus given that Matsuyama stood three shots clear with seven holes to play. The eventual playoff participants played together in the penultimate pairing and opened the day three strokes adrift of overnight lead Sepp Straka, so that neither Straka nor Scheffler, who was one back of Straka entering the finale, performed well enough to join the playoff, much less win outright, was also a surprise. But that’s why they hit the balls.

Noren has also been a force worldwide for months. Since a T7 in the 3M Open in late July, he’s connected twice for victory on the DP World Tour and delivered another two top fives among seven top 20s. It’s career-best stuff for the 43-year-old Swede, who opened 2025 with four months off due to injury. He was +2500 to win the Hero World Challenge, the eighth-longest in the field.

Sepp’s missteps

Sepp Straka hadn’t played competitively since finishing last in the 30-man TOUR Championship in late August. It was entirely understandable given that his firstborn child, Leo, was premature and required special care in his first few weeks since arriving that same month. The new father sat out the conclusion of the DP World Tour season to be with his family in Alabama.

So, the timing of the Hero World Challenge – a tournament that he loves and had finished a respective T10, second, and T9 since first appearing in 2022 – was perfect not only to dust off the rust but to re-engage with his peers and reconnect with a little of the normal in his life. However, perhaps in part due to the personal challenges that he faced in the last three months, he was tied for fifth-longest to win at +2700. In a field in which Billy Horschel (who finished 15th) was longest at +5000, those were tasty odds for the big Austrian who’d settle for solo third.

Straka was bogey-free 4-under through 10 holes on Sunday, but he traded a pair of bogeys and as many birdies coming in and checked up one stroke outside the playoff. That he didn’t slam the door on Sunday was unfortunate for owners with a ticket for him to do just that, but we learned that he can contend immediately in the wake of much more important experiences.

This, that and the other

• The perfect parlay among top finishes was as follows: Matsuyama (+1900 to win), Straka (+320 for a top five) and Wyndham Clark (+150 for a top 10). Clark finished T8.
• Needless to say, Scheffler was the favorite to make it three consecutive wins at Albany, but at +140, that was still enticing enough to reserve at least a fraction of a unit, especially if you rode him to win all season. If you bet exactly $100 pre-tournament at FanDuel for him to win all 21 of his starts in 2025, you’d have netted $340. That breaks into a difference of $1840 in kickbacks plus $600 of your original investments (to account for his six victories). Indeed, Scheffler is his own promotional giveaway. Now we just need to keep him out of the kitchen at Christmas.

That’s the Ticket!

This section reflects which bets endorsed by the Golfbet team cashed and where you could find them.

Q: Where was the winner in my full-field Power Rankings?
A: No. 8 – Hideki Matsuyama. “Won the 2016 edition and has been a consistent force ever since, but this is his first return since 2018. Led off 2025 with a win at The Sentry but didn’t pick off another top 10 until going T7-T5 in Asia since late October.”

Expert Picks

Will Gray

• Head-to-head: Sepp Straka (-112), third, over Corey Conners, seventh

Chris Breece

• Head-to-head: Aaron Rai (-125), 18th, over Jordan Spieth, T19

Rob Bolton

• Head-to-head: Hideki Matsuyama (+110), Win, over J.J. Spaun, T4

Paul Hodowanic

• Alex Noren (P2) – Top five (+260)
• Head-to-head: Alex Noren (-125), P2, over Chris Gotterup, T19

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