After a wild week in Las Vegas, the PGA TOUR now heads to Japan for the 2024 ZOZO Championship. I'll never understand why the TOUR has to randomly capitalize so many words, but that's an issue for another day.
We haven't hit an outright in these articles since the TOUR Championship when Collin Morikawa secured the lowest 72-hole score. While there haven't been too many events since then, it's time to get back on the winning train.
The ZOZO Championship has been an event each of the last five years, but it was played at a different venue in 2020 due to COVID. The four winners of the event at this venue were Morikawa, Keegan Bradley, Hideki Matsuyama, and Tiger Woods. I'll never forget the week Tiger won, as he bogeyed his first three holes and still went on to win.
Before we get into the course specifics, let's talk about the former winners here. They are all good total drivers of the ball, they are all elite iron players, and they are all very good at limiting mistakes. I'll also add that they tend to hit more greens in regulation than the field. When looking for a winner this week, I plan to focus on that strong tee-to-green skillset.
ZOZO Championship Preview
ACCORDIA GOLF Narashino Country Club is a par-70 that measures 7,079 yards. It's a unique par-70 layout in that it has three par fives and no mid-range par fours. There are several short par fours and several long par fours. This is one of the more difficult tracks on TOUR, as it has ranked inside the top 15 in difficulty every year.
We don't have any ShotLink data from past editions of this event, so we don't have a super strong course fit to lean on. With that said, we still have some data. In 2023, the field hit 48% of fairways and had an average driving distance of 313 yards. This tells me golfers were happy to pull drivers on most of the holes, given the fact that the fairways are so tough to hit.
Each hole at Narashino Country Club features two greens, but only one will be in play each round. Given the fact that there are 36 of them, the greens here are naturally very small. The field was only able to hit these greens in regulation 63% of the time last year. This emphasizes approach play and around-the-green play.
Let's manifest an outright winner this week.
2024 ZOZO Championship Predictions
Kurt Kitayama +2500 (BetMGM)
Kitayama has gained strokes off the tee in 14 of his last 15 events and has been red-hot with his irons in his two starts this fall. In the last two weeks, he has gained 6.3 strokes at the Shriners Children's Open and 10.6 strokes at the Black Desert Championship.
Despite losing over 10 strokes putting, he finished T9 and T25 in those two events. The putter is always a wildcard, but we've seen bad putters win here in the past. I love the way his game is trending, and he doesn't have to shake off the rust like a lot of the favorites on the field.
J.J. Spaun +4500 (FanDuel)
Spaun was many people's favorite bet at the Sanderson Farms Championship, where he withdrew after a bad first round. Before that, he had three top-10 finishes in his previous six events.
Since that withdrawal, he's finished T25 at the Black Desert Championship and T34 at the Shriners Children's Open (despite being on the wrong side of the draw). He has now gained at least 4.3 strokes tee to green in six of his last eight events. He's third in this field in bogey avoidance over the last six months and has finished T6 and T25 in two starts at this course.
Chan Kim +7000 (FanDuel)
Kim was on my betting card last week. While he was on the right side of the draw, things did not go according to plan. He lost over four strokes, putting in the first round, and was unable to recover in his second round. We now get the chance to bet him at much higher odds in a much smaller field.
He has gained at least four strokes tee to green in seven of his last 10 starts. The putter can be a problem at times, but again, I'm focusing on tee-to-green play for my bets. What I love about Kim is that he's won eight times in Japan in his career.
