{"id":224579,"date":"2021-04-12T03:22:54","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T00:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/bob-turner-helped-turn-hideki-matsuyama-into-masters-champion\/"},"modified":"2021-04-12T03:22:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T00:22:54","slug":"bob-turner-helped-turn-hideki-matsuyama-into-masters-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bob-turner-helped-turn-hideki-matsuyama-into-masters-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"#Bob Turner helped turn Hideki Matsuyama into Masters champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Bob Turner helped turn Hideki Matsuyama into Masters champion<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2014 The shepherd was dressed in a white Masters cap, a collared short-sleeve shirt and dark blue slacks, and he looked like your average 68-year-old bank executive in your average golf gallery. But Bob Turner was not some well-connected fan who scored a ticket to an Augusta National on Sunday downsized by the pandemic.<\/p>\n

No, Turner was the most obvious American reason why Japan now has a men\u2019s major champion for the first time.<\/p>\n

He is far more than Hideki Matsuyama\u2019s interpreter. Turner is his logistics man, transportation man and tournament entries man. He is to the golfer what a \u201cbody man\u201d is to a United States president. Turner is the one who helped make Matsuyama comfortable enough in a foreign land that he could win Jack Nicklaus\u2019 tournament in Ohio as a 22-year-old, become a five-time PGA Tour winner, and make history in his native country by winning the game<\/a>\u2019s most prestigious tournament a world away in the Georgia pines.<\/p>\n

More than anything, Turner is Hideki Matsuyama\u2019s good friend. He wasn\u2019t just at the champion\u2019s side during his interview in Butler Cabin, or in the main media<\/a> center. Turner was at his side the entire week, on and off the course, just like he has been for years, trying to steer his man to a magical moment that was nearly 50 years in the making.<\/p>\n

The journey started in 1972, when Turner, a Brigham Young student and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, left for a two-year mission in Japan. He met the woman who would be his wife, returned to the U.S., and then, after his wife, Hiroko, grew homesick, headed back to Japan to finish his studies and play golf at Tokyo\u2019s Waseda University, which had one of the nation\u2019s 10 best golf teams. He was the only American playing collegiate golf in Japan, and one day a tournament director asked him, \u201cWhat the heck are you doing over here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Masters\"
Translator and friend Bob Turner (back) has been a huge part of Hideki Matsuyama\u2019s journey to Masters champion.<\/figcaption>
REUTERS<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The man offered Turner a job in the golf industry, and soon enough he was helping Seve Ballesteros, Sam Snead and Johnny Miller when they arrived in Japan. Back in the States years later, Turner\u2019s son Allen would work as an interpreter for Seattle Mariners stars Kazuhiro Sasaki and Ichiro Suzuki. Sasaki had attended Matsuyama\u2019s university, Tohoku Fukushi, which would compete in tournaments in Seattle. The school\u2019s golf coach would ultimately ask Turner, who was working for his father, to help Matsuyama get acclimated to Augusta after a 19-year-old Hideki qualified for the Masters in 2011, when he finished as low amateur.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd here we are,\u201d Bob Turner said off the first fairway Sunday, hours before his friend would end up in a green jacket.<\/p>\n

Turner looked a bit stressed after Matsuyama bogeyed 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\u2019s passion to Ballesteros\u2019s. \u201cSeve used to tell me, \u2018Bob, I hole out on Sunday and pack up and just couldn\u2019t wait to get to the next tournament.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Turner told a story about Matsuyama\u2019s first U.S. Open, at Merion, in 2013, when he shot a final-round 67 to finish tied for 10th. It had been a long, wet, draining week at Merion, with serious logistical challenges, and Turner figured it was a wrap after his player cleaned out his locker and headed to a parking lot near the practice range.<\/p>\n

Matsuyama told his interpreter he wanted to hit some balls.<\/p>\n

\u201cAren\u2019t you tired?\u201d Turner asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cBob,\u201d Matsuyama responded, \u201clook at this beautiful practice range. We can\u2019t let it go to waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matsuyama pounded away for an hour. \u201cI knew then that this is somebody special,\u201d Turner said.<\/p>\n

He had to be special Sunday to overcome his second shot on the 15th hole, where he held a four-stroke lead. Matsuyama knocked his app<\/a>roach over the green and into the water, and barely scrambled to make bogey while Schauffele was making birdie to cut the lead to two.<\/p>\n

Schauffele was the one who folded on the next hole, when he put his tee shot in the water on the way to a fatal trip<\/a>le bogey. Matsuyama missed his par putt, but in the end it didn\u2019t matter. He made par on 17 to keep his two-stroke advantage on Will Zalatoris, and then tapped in for bogey on 18 to join Tsubasa Kajitani, Augusta National Women\u2019s Amateur winner, as Japanese champs on these grounds.<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s job was just starting then. The 68-year-old American who made lifelong friends with his Waseda teammates and still regards them as brothers decades later had to steer his friend through a maze of media obligations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a translator,\u201d Turner explained. \u201cI could translate word for word. I\u2019m an interpreter. I hear what he\u2019s saying, and then I try to say it as an American, or someone who speaks English, would say the same feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner takes pride in taking his player\u2019s temperature and matching his cadence. \u201cI guess I\u2019m processing it from here,\u201d he said, pointing to his heart, \u201crather than from here,\u201d he added, pointing to his head.<\/p>\n

But before the post-tournament proceedings started, Hideki Matsuyama gave Bob Turner a warm hug behind the 18th green. No interpretation was required.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Bob Turner helped turn Hideki Matsuyama into Masters champion” AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2014 The shepherd was dressed in a white Masters cap, a collared short-sleeve shirt and dark blue slacks, and he looked like your average 68-year-old bank executive in your average golf gallery. But Bob Turner was not some well-connected fan who scored a ticket…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/GOLF-MASTERS_.1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[101630,70881,71653,78456,71941],"class_list":["post-224579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-4-11-21","tag-golf","tag-hideki-matsuyama","tag-pga-tour","tag-the-masters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}