AUGUSTA, Ga. – The pastor was dressed in a white Masters cap, a short-sleeved shirt with a dark blue collar and pants, and looked like your 68-year-old bank executive in your average golf gallery. But Bob Turner was not a well-connected fan who got a ticket to an Augusta National on Sunday reduced by the pandemic.
No, Turner was the most obvious American reason why Japan now has a senior male champion for the first time.
He is much more than the performer of Hideki Matsuyama. Turner is his logistics man, transport man and tournament man. It’s for the golfer what a “body man” is for a president of the United States. Turner is the one who helped Matsuyama be comfortable enough in a foreign land to be able to win the Jack Nicklaus tournament in Ohio when he was 22, become a five-time PGA Tour winner and make history in his home country by winning the most prestigious game tournament in the world in the pines of Georgia.
More than anything, Turner is a good friend of Hideki Matsuyama. He was not alone with the champion during his interview at Butler Cabin or the main communication center. Turner was by her side all week, on and off the track, as she has been for years, trying to steer her husband toward a magical moment nearly 50 years ago.
The journey began in 1972, when Turner, a student of Brigham Young and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, set out on a two-year mission to Japan. He met the woman who would become his wife, returned to the United States, and then, after his wife, Hiroko, became hungry, he returned to Japan to finish his studies and play golf at Waseda University in Tokyo. , which had one of the nation’s 10. best golf equipment. He was the only American to play college golf in Japan and one day a tournament director asked him, “What the hell are you doing here?”
The man offered Turner a job in the golf industry and soon helped Seve Ballesteros, Sam Snead and Johnny Miller when they arrived in Japan. Back in the United States years later, Turner’s son Allen would work as a performer for Seattle Mariners stars Kazuhiro Sasaki and Ichiro Suzuki. Sasaki had attended Matsuyama University, Tohoku Fukushi, who would compete in tournaments in Seattle. The school’s golf coach would eventually ask Turner, who worked for his father, to help Matsuyama adjust to Augusta after 19-year-old Hideki qualified for the Masters in 2011, when he finished as down amateur.
“And here we are,” Bob Turner said on the first street on Sunday, hours before his friend finished a green jacket.
Turner looked a little stressed after Matsuyama stopped the No. 1 and turned his four-shot lead over Xander Schauffele into a three-shot lead. Just not too stressed. As he walked the course and talked to two reporters, Turner compared Matsuyama’s passion to that of Ballesteros. “Seve would say to me, ‘Bob, on Sunday I make a hole and pack my bags and I couldn’t wait to get to the next tournament.’
Turner told a story about Matsuyama’s first U.S. Open at Merion in 2013, when he shot a 67 from the final round to finish tied for 10th place. It had been a long, wet, exhausting week at Merion, with severe logistical challenges, and Turner thought it was a wrap after his player cleaned his locker and headed to a parking lot near the training ground.
Matsuyama told his performer that he wanted to hit some balls.
“Aren’t you tired?” Turner asked.
“Bob,” Matsuyama replied, “look at this beautiful field of practice. We can’t let it get lost.”
Matsuyama hit for an hour. “Back then I knew this was someone special,” Turner said.
He had to be special on Sunday to overcome his second shot in the 15th hole, where he maintained a four-stroke lead. Matsuyama left his focus on the green and the water, and barely hurried to bogey while Schauffele made a birdie to reduce the lead to two.
Schauffele was the one who bent into the next hole, when he put the shot in the water on the way to a fatal triple bogey. Matsuyama lost his putt pair, but in the end it didn’t matter. She made the pair at 17 to maintain her two-time lead over Will Zalatoris, and then took advantage of the bogey on 18 to join Tsubasa Kajitani, winner of Augusta’s Women’s National Adjustment, as Japanese champions for these reasons.
Turner’s work was just beginning then. The 68-year-old American who made lifelong friends with his Waseda teammates and still considers them brothers decades later had to lead his friend through a maze of media obligations.
“I’m not a translator,” Turner explained. “I could translate word for word. I am an interpreter. I listen to what he says, and then I try to say it, because an American or someone who speaks English would feel the same way. ”
Turner is proud to take his player’s temperature and match his cadence. “I guess I’m processing it from here,” he said, pointing to his heart, “instead of here,” he added, pointing to his head.
But before the post-tournament proceedings began, Hideki Matsuyama gave Bob Turner a big hug behind the 18th green. No interpretation was needed.