2022 ZOZO Championship Betting Picks Preview

As the calendar season for the PGA Tour heads down the final stretch, 78 golfers will make the trip to the Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club for this no-cut event. Set just outside of Japan’s expansive capital city of Tokyo, the ZOZO Championship is currently the only PGA Tour event held in Asia.

The course plays as a shorter Par 70 and is a super-tight, heavily tree-lined course with six doglegs, five Par 3 holes, and smaller-than-average bentgrass greens. It is definitely a course unique to Japanese-style golf. This will be the third edition of the ZOZO Championship in Japan. The weather has affected both events here at this course. Back in 2019, the course played slightly under par but had to deal with the remnants of a monsoon and was inundated with six inches of rainfall. Then last year, cold and rainy conditions made play difficult and the course played a half-stroke over par.

This is the same course where Tiger Woods earned his 82nd PGA Tour victory in 2019 to tie Sam Snead’s record. Japan’s favorite son, and 2021 ZOZO Championship winner, Hideki Matsuyama returns home and headlines the field as he looks to defend his title from last year. Overall, seven of the top 20, and 20 of the top 60 ranked players in the world will be in attendance.

Tokyo Olympics gold medalist and fifth-ranked player in the world, Xander Schauffele is the highest-rated player in the field. He excels in no-cut events and has family roots in Japan. Other high-ranked players in the field include Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Young, and Sungjae Im. Also making the trip over to Asia is two-time PGA winner, Tom Kim, who just won the Shriners Open this past week. With the event being co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour Organization, there will be more than a dozen golfers from that Tour in the field.

Keys to Success

Even without strokes gained data from this course to rely on, the recipe for success at Narashino Country Club seems quite clear. To start, this is not an “easy scoring” layout. Over the first two iterations of this event, the average score has been exactly even-par. Poor weather conditions in the form of wind and rain have affected play and look to do so again this year with over an inch of rain forecast for Thursday. So one of the narratives I am chasing from my outright bets to finishing position selections is players who perform better in tougher conditions.

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As for the course itself, it will be positional golf off the tee (OTT). I hear numerous golf “experts” claiming that driving distance is crucial here. But I’m not buying it. First of all, there has not been enough sample size at this course to determine that yet, and secondly, with six doglegs and fairways that are “packed” with trees, the bombers are not able to cut corners on any hole they choose.

So finding fairways is key, but at the same time players need to be on the correct side of the hole, even if they are in the rough, to get the best angle to attack these smaller-than-average greens. I am completely staying away from erratic drivers OTT. Instead of playing through the tree line, players who hit wayward shots will have to pitch their ball back into the fairway and will struggle to make par.

On approach shots, ball-striking with mostly mid-to-long irons will be crucial. It is not coincidence that the two winners on this course, Tiger Woods and Hideki Matsuyama, are two of the best iron players ever.

There is also a path for good scramblers to have success here. With an average Greens in Regulation rate, players will miss greens. Last year’s leaderboard saw numerous high finishers from players with strong short games including Mackenzie Hughes, Wallace, and Fleetwood. With ball-striking being such a challenge here, putting on these pure bentgrass greens seems to be the easiest part of the course. In my model this week, I heavily weighted Opportunities Gained, which measures how often a player hits their approach shot to within 15 feet of the hole. Because scoring is difficult, players do not have to make every single putt to succeed here at Narashino. This event is definitely not a birdie-fest. This is why we have seen poor putters have success here including players like Matsuyama, Corey Conners and Keegan Bradley.

Finally, with this event being in Japan, players with experience on the DP World Tour who have played around the globe will also be heavily featured in my selections. Golfers like Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Wallace, Kurt Kitayama and Christiaan Bezuidenhout have an advantage in that area from their past experiences. With a large portion of the American players in this field lacking overseas experience, I will lean more on the “international” players in this event.

Chiba, Japan Weather Forecast (October 13th-October 16th)

Top 10 Most Important Stats

*In order of importance.

  • SG: APP
  • Good Drive %
  • Scrambling
  • SG: Putting (Bent)
  • Opportunites Gained
  • Proximity (150-200 yds)
  • Fairways Gained
  • SG: Tough Scoring Conditions
  • Bogeys Avoided

The ZOZO Championship Final Model

In each preview article and on Discord, I present my final model, which gives a detailed player ranking of the most important stats and splits for the week. My modeling is built around the PGA’s Strokes Gained data, which is divided into SG: Off the Tee (OTT), SG: Approach (APP), SG: Around the Green (ARG), and SG: Putting (P). Learn more about Strokes Gained and why it can be so useful in analyzing the past and predicting future performance. Many of the individual splits will be posted on my Twitter feed, with the final model exclusively published here for subscribers.

Outright Betting Selections

*Lines accurate at the time of publication.

Collin Morikawa +1700 (currently +1600)

This course demands an elite ball-striker, and there are few better in the world than Morikawa. His accuracy off the tee and iron play should separate him from the field giving him more chances on the greens. And since this is not a “birdie-fest” event, he does not need to make every putt. We have seen poor putters finish high on the leaderboard and win this event (Matsuyama).

(1.41u) BetRivers

Tommy Fleetwood +3500

Over the past nine months, Fleetwood is averaging the second-most strokes gained per round in this field. For whatever reason, he tends to play his best golf outside of the U.S. and has played well here at Narashino finishes of 7th and 22nd. His excellent putting form has returned as well as he has gained in 10 of his last 12 events.

(0.68u) DraftKings

Tom Hoge +4000

Hoge is one of the elite iron players in the world, which is the exact skill we want to target this week. He had an incredible week at the Shriners, finishing 4th and gaining seven strokes on approach. This comes after the 4.2 shots on approach that he gained at the Fortinet and has four top 12s in his last six starts and is now ranked as the 35th player in the world according to the OWGR.

(0.60u) DraftKings

Mito Pereira +4200

Coming off an outstanding week at the Shriners where he gained an amazing 9.1 strokes on approach, his game is in excellent form. Not a long hitter off the tee, this is another course that allows his all-around game to shine.

(0.26u) BetRivers

Kurt Kitayama +9000 (currently +6000)

Kitayama brings a wealth of international playing experience into this week. Even though he missed the cut at the Shriners, he still gained with his irons, and before that finished 7th in the Italian Open. Still looking for that breakthrough PGA Tour win, he has three top-3 finishes in the last eight months. In a no-cut event where his scoring ability can shine over four rounds, he could surprise this week.

(0.26u) DraftKings

Other Outright Selections

Finishing Position Picks

Top 10

Top 20

Top 30

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Photo by Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images