The Zozo Championship

The ZOZO Championship

After the highs of our win with Matt McCarty in Utah last week it was a definite ‘low’ for us in Vegas.

The week got off to an ominous start with three of our team being drawn in the wrong half of a strong wind bias and after one of the Joel Dahmen got penalised four shots for having a 15^th club in has bag it was downhill from there on in! In the end only one of our team, Daniel Berger made the cut and with his stalling over the weekend it was a hugely disappointing event all round.

The event itself was won by JT Poston who when you add in the fact that Michael Kim and Davis Thompson also finished top five, really cemented the link between this event and the John Deere Classic, played on another Par 71 TPC course.

So, we move on and it’s time for a trip to Japan for The Zozo Championship. The event is held at Accordia Golf Narashino CC in Chiba, which is about 25  miles from Tokyo.

The tournament, which was introduced to the calendar in 2019 is now a regular fixture on the schedule with a deal in place for it to take place until at least 2025.

In 2020 due to the covid 19 pandemic the event was moved for one year only to the US, more specifically Sherwood CC in California, however in 2021 we returned to Japan for the third playing at the home venue.

The event is a limited field event with no cut. The field in principle is made up of the top 60 available players from the previous seasons Fedex Cup, the top seven players in the current Japan Golf Tour’s money list, the top three players finishing in the Bridgestone Open and eight sponsor’s exemptions.

There is no denying the field on display this week is a far stronger one than we have seen at any other Fall events to date, however beneath the ‘headline acts’ it still lacks some depth.

Home favourite Hideki Matsuyama is as usual the star draw, however Hideki is not the favourite in the betting though, this honour goes to Xander Schauffele who is at prohibitive single figure odds, with defending champion Collin Morikawa and Matsuyama also at single digits.

COURSE

The host course Accordia Golf Narashino CC a par 70 measuring just under 7041yds.

Importantly though unlike most par 70 courses the course includes five par 3’s and three par 5s in its setup instead of the customary two par 5s and four par 3s.

The course sits 26 miles east of Tokyo’s glistening downtown Ginza district, just over halfway to Narita International Airport.

There are two courses at Narashino CC, the King and the Queen course, and this weeks 18 holes will be made up of a composite of the two.

The course opened in 1965.

The greens are Bentgrass while the fairways feature Zoyzia grass, comparable to that seen at TPC Southwind and East Lake.

The most unique feature of the course is that as is the custom with many Japanese golf courses each hole has two greens. If a player finds the wrong green during tournament week, which isn’t in play on the hole, they will get a free drop under a ‘wrong green’ ruling to the nearest point of relief.

The track features narrowish, treelined fairways and smallish greens not too dissimilar visually to the sort of course you find in the Carolina’s, perhaps like Sedgefield or Quail Hollow [although not comparable in length to the latter], or even more so to Copperhead, home of the Valspar Championship over on the Tampa coast, which is often seen as more as a Carolina’s type course rather than a Florida one.

HISTORY

With the event having been played on US soil in 2020 we can dismiss that edition from our thinking meaning we have three outings in 2019, 2021 and last year at Narashino CC to focus on.

So then let’s have a look at the top ten finishers from those two years.

2023

1, C Morikawa, T2 E Cole, B Hossler, T4, R Shelton, R Ishikawa, T6 K Hirata, R Hisatsune, JJ Spaun, MW Lee, T10 J Suh, E Grillo.

2022

1, K Bradley, T2 R Fowler, A Putnam, 4 E Grillo, T5 V Hovland, S Theegala, H Buckley, 8 C Champ, T9 T Hoge, X Schauffele, M NeSmith.

2021

1, H Matsuyama. T2 B Steele, C Tringale, T4, M Hughes, M Wallace, S Munoz, T7, K Bradley, L Griffin, T Kanaya, L List, T Fleetwood, B Grace, C Morikawa, S Ryder.

2019

1 T Woods, 2 H Matsuyama, T3 S Im, R McIlroy, 5 G Woodland, T6 C Conners,  B Horschel

T8 B An,  C Howell III, T10, D Lee, R Palmer, X Schauffele

So, what can we glean from these leaderboards? Well with only four year’s worth of data the picture is still pretty sketchy in all honesty.

What I would say though is looking at the type of player who is coming to the fore alongside the obvious big names rising to the top this seems to be very much a course suited to the most solid tee to green ball strikers on tour. Last year we saw a run away victory for Collin Morikawa who is amongst the strongest in the game in this department with Shelton, Hisatsune and Spaun who all made the frame known for their strength in this area as well. Meanwhile in 2022 the likes of Bradley, Grillo, NeSmith and Buckley were prominent while Steele and Tringale finished top three the year before is that

In addition one thing we can see though from the stats available is that in 2019 the key to Tiger’s win was a hot putter, he ranked first in old fashioned ‘putts per GIR’ and coupled this with a strong approach game, he was third in GIR. Basically he did everything great, something reflected in the fact that he was six shots clear of the third place finishers.

The second player home, that year, Matsuyama, ranked second for the week in putting, rubber stamping the hot putter angle, while he was sixth in GIR and Sungjae Im who tied for third with McIlroy was fourth in putting.

With limited stats data available for this event over the years it is tough to piece the picture together fully, however both of the last two champions here Morikawa and Bradley also brought a hot putter to the event ranking second and sixth in this area, combine this then with the fact that they both excelled in their normal strength of GIR, both ranking third on the week, and it is clear to see how they triumphed!

One angle that does interest me though is something that I initially speculated on in my preview in 2019 prior to the courses first outing and that is that the flyovers I had seen reminded me in some ways of a Copperhead type course in it being tree lined and quite tight in places. In addition of course we have the similarity between the two events of the five par three’s.

The reason this angle still interests me is if we look at the final top ten from 2019 noted above we had one former Copperhead Champion, Woodland, a player in Im who finished top five that year in the Valspar and a player in Conners who first hit our consciousness when he lead at the Copperhead through three rounds and had Tiger for company on Sunday.

Meanwhile if we look at the 2021 top ten here we’ll see that two players who featured prominently at the Copperhead course in 2021, Bradley and Tringale, finished high up the board here.

If we then look at 2022s top ten home we again see Bradley’s name in lights, Sahith Theegala finished fifth here having posted seventh at the Valspar earlier in the year while Matthew NeSmith who was third at the Valspar earlier in the year came home in ninth.

Furthermore if we scroll down the 2022 ZOZO leaderboard to 12^th we will find Taylor Moore, this years Valspar champion.

Finally, one other thing we need to consider is the potential for rustiness from some players.

In 2022 Bradley triumphed here on the back of a fifth place at the Sanderson’s two weeks before, while runners up Fowler and Putnam had already made two and three starts respectively in the Fall with Fowler having a top ten and Putnam 12^th in Vegas the week before, and many will arrive this week in Japan on the back of a similarly active Fall schedule. On the flip side of the coin though last year Morikawa triumphed here having only played in the Ryder Cup since his last stroke play outing in the Tour Championship.

 WEATHER FORECAST

We look set this week for a dry week as a whole with temperatures sitting in the low to mid 70s.

Saturday is the one day where we could seen some showers as things stand.

Wind does not appear to be much of an issue either with nothing more than 15mph in the forecast.

As I always say though…this could all change!            

PICKS

I have gone with four players this week as follows;

JUSTIN THOMAS – 18/1 – 2.5pts E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 7

I will start things off this week by risking Justin Thomas.

It’s been a funny old year for JT as he has at times looked back to his old self producing five top ten finishes, all of, which was enough to bag 14^th spot on the Fedex Cup, equally though there have been some really poor weeks thrown in, including missed cuts at the Masters and US Open.

Plenty of good stuff though, however the one thing missing is a comeback win.

From that point of view then and with motivation clearly a key driver when considering bigger names at this time of year I think JT will be focused this week to put that right as he looks to bag his first trophy since his PGA Triumph in 2022.

To tie in with this then and one other thing I can’t get away from is JT’s record at this time of year and in particular his record out in Asia where he has been a frequent visitor. A winner twice at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia in the Fall he is also a two time winner at this time of year in the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges. Thats a career’s worth of wins in limited field events for JT in Asia in the Fall then!

From a course form point of view Thomas has only visited this track once finishing 17^th, however he has a strong record on shorter par 70 layouts including a win at Waialae CC, while this year he has posted top fives at Hilton Head and TPC River Highlands. Meanwhile he has two two top tens including a third, in the last three years at the correlating Copperhead Course, home  of the Valspar.

Like several Justin is teeing it up for the first time since the Tour Championship however I can’t help thinking he will have a slight chip on his shoulder having been overlooked for the Presidents Cup, while as a two time winner of the Sentry ToC we know he is more than capable of going well after a break.

All in all then when there are no doubt some question marks over the market leaders Thomas makes plenty of appeal to me on many levels and I am happy to jump on board.

MAVERICK McNEALY – 35/1 – 1.5pts e/w 1/5 odds 1^st 8

Next up for me this week I am going to take my chances with Maverick McNealy.

I have to be honest I expected a lot from McNealy over the Fall, however to date he has spectacularly failed to deliver missing back to back cuts at the Procore and Sanderson Farms.

Last week however Maverick bounced back to life at his local event in Vegas to ultimately finish 16^th after closing out with rounds of 67 and 64. Furthermore Maverick’s approach play started to fire really nicely as he ranked fourth and 16^th in that department over the weekend.

Heading out to Japan hopefully in confident mood then McNealy returns to a track where he has played nicely on his two previous visits finishing 25^th and 12^th. The latter it should be noted could also have been much better but for a disappointing closing 71.

The fact that Maverick has performed well on the short par 70 track they face this week should not be a huge surprise as a look over his career on tour to date shows us that a lot of his best golf has come on shorter layouts. He has two top fives to his name at Hilton Head, while last year he started off 2023 with a seventh place at Waialae. Meanwhile this year he posted a seventh place at the short par 70 used for the RBC Canadian Open.

Known on his day as one of the best putters on tour McNealy actually struggled on the dance floor last week, however at 35^th for the year on the greens I’ll take this as a blip. If he can find his touch with the flat stick again this week then I can see Maverick building on last weeks eye-catching effort and making a bold showing for his first tour win.

RICKIE FOWLER – 60/1 – 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 7

After his comeback year in 2023, which saw him return to the winners enclosure it’s been an underwhelming 2024 for Rickie Fowler, as he failed to post a top ten all season before ultimately putting his clubs away after the Open Championship to focus on family life and the birth of his second daughter.

Returning at the Sanderson Farms though Fowler produced a promising performance to finish 16^th and then backed that up with a decent showing at the Shriners last week to finish 23^rd. Furthermore a look at Fowler’s numbers for the week in Vegas show us that he ranked 16^th in approach and eighth off the tee so his long game was firing nicely.

Heading off to Japan with some momentum then Fowler returns to an event, which due to his Japanese heritage with his Grandmother means an awful lot to him and he should be fully motivated to put in another big performance here.

I say ‘another big performance’ as a look at Fowler’s record here shows us that he was runner up to Keegan Bradley in 2022. Last years performance here though was far more disappointing, however I can see a lot more of a comparison this year to Rickie’s visit in 2022, when he was motivated and looking to rediscover his game, whereas last year after his superb comeback summer I suspect he had taken his foot off the gas before making his first start here since the Tour Championship.

This year then I’ll take Rickie to build on his two solid Fall starts to date and produce the kind of week he did here two years ago.

RYO HISATSUNE – 90/1 – 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 8

Finally, frankly I was astonished to see the sort of numbers that were available on Ryo Hisatsune early on Monday and while the 150s was snapped up very sharply he still looks a great bet to me at 90/1 for eight places.

Hisatsune turned professional in 2020 and after winning three times on the Japan Challenge Tour he earned status for the DP World Tour at the end of 2022 via Q School.

Since then the 22yr old has been a revelation posting five top tens across the 2023 season on the DP World Tour including two top three finishes before he landed his maiden DP World Tour Title at the Le Golf National.

In that victory Ryo showed us that he is more than comfortable on a track that requires strong tee to green play and this is something that he backed up with his season long 2023 stats on the DP World Tour of ninth in Driving Accuracy and 15^th in good old fashioned GIR.

Roll on to 2024 and as a result of his great play on the DP World tour in 2023 Ryo found himself with a PGA Tour card, which he put to good use with a Fedex Finish of 84^th. Currently now at 93^rd in Fedex Fall he looks set to comfortably keep his card.

Looking at Ryo’s 2024 stats on the PGA Tour he has shown us again that strong iron play his best asset ranking 47^th in approach and 27^th in GIR, while his best showing came at the Wyndham where he was third on the short par 70 layout.

On that basis then aside from his obvious comfort levels playing at home you would expect Ryo to have all the skill sets required to handle the narrow tree lined fairways of this layout.

On this front though we don’t need to speculate too much as Hisatsune finished 12^th here in 2022 and then backed that up with a sixth place last year when we were onboard.

Ryo warmed up nicely with a 25^th place in Utah a couple of weeks back and I expect another bold showing from him on home soil this week.