The ZOZO Championship is a slightly different style of event than your classic PGA tour event. It is a limited field, in this case 78 player, no cut 72 hole event. The course for this week is Accordia Golf Narashino CC, which comes in at just over 7,000 yards and will be playing as a par 70 for the event. While it normally plays as a par 72, holes 11 and 12 which normally have a par 5 designation are changed to a 4 for this event, as they will both be playing under 500 yards in length.
Now as you will often see in these limited field type events, the strength of field is higher than normal. Morikawa, Im, Schauffele, Matsuyama, Cameron Young, Tom Kim, Si Woo Kim, Corey Conners, Hovland, are all teeing it up this week in Japan. While those are the names that grab the most headlines this week going into the event, there are some strong contenders that fall a little more under the radar that we will go over in this weeks picks.
Let’s start off with a big name, Cameron Young. Some people say he is a budding superstar, while others say he is already a superstar. Cam Young absolutely pounds the golf ball as one of the longest hitters on tour off the tee. He also plays with a pretty aggressive style more often than not, opting for aggressive lines off the tee and isn’t one to lay up often. He has the skills, attitude, and Data Golf ranks him as the second best player for course fit this week only behind Wyndham Clark, if you are thinking about going with one of the favorites this week, I would go with Cam Young.
As for a player with a little less notoriety that is in line for a big week at the ZOZO, Davis Riley comes to mind. The last event he played at was the Sanderson. There he finished a very respectable T-19. He obtained that finish while fighting his driver all week long. He finished with an abysmal adjusted driving accuracy of -14%, meaning he hit 14% less fairways than an average performance. Some could say he is in a slump, but the long term evidence does not suggest that. He is in the top 15 in the field as far as Data Golf course fit goes, I do not foresee the driver giving him as many issues as it did last time out, and when you put all that together I think we will see a top 5 finish for Davis Riley this week at the ZOZO.
The last player that I wanted to shout out before the event is Hayden Buckley. His course fit is not the best this week coming in at a -.03, however I believe that will be overcome by his recent form. In this PGA tour season he has only logged two rounds so far in which he has negative strokes gained, and at the Shriners last week, he shot four rounds in the 60’s. Hayden seems to be an improved driver of the golf ball this year as he has logged positive strokes gained off the tee in every single round he has played so far this year. When you combine his run of overall form with his improved game off the tee this year, I think it is fair to disregard the course fit for him and I see a top 10 finish well within reach for Hayden Buckley this week at The ZOZO.
