ZOZO Championship preview and best bets

Golf Betting Tips: ZOZO Championship

4 points ew Sungjae Im at 14/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

2 points ew Si Woo Kim at 30/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5 points ew Max Homa at 55/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair

So far, the favorites named for the FedEx case are: Sahith Theegala, Keith Mitchell (twice), Tom Kim. Two potential stars, a player who seemingly spent a decade becoming something more. There was an overwhelming feeling that while this new installment of the PGA Tour season is fantastic for the purist, it will lack star quality for years to come.

That’s not a problem in the ZOZO Championship, where the favorite is Xander Schauffele and behind him are Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama, both former champions. In fact, all three players won in Japan, Schauffele of course at the postponed Tokyo 2020, and while Matsuyama is the Japanese star, his rivals both have strong ties to the country that go beyond golf.

The list of winners from these fall events so far is Patton Kizzire, Kevin Yu, Matt McCarty and JT Poston, but this is the first where the first few names on the market are truly scary. The question is, which one, if any, is the bet?

Xander Schauffele was arguably the best player at the Presidents Cup and hasn’t played badly in many, many months. This was his breakout season, Schauffele made the transition from near-man to two-time major champion, and it’s hard to imagine him finishing worse than around ninth. On the other hand, ninth place is his best result so far and that is quite disappointing considering his class.

Perhaps Narashino Country Club doesn’t suit him quite as well as the other two, although Morikawa improved on his previous performances when he demolished a similar field 12 months ago and after going from a TOUR Championship leader to a Presidents Cup standout , his prospects are obvious. I doubt defending his title will bother him in the slightest, even though he has strangely little experience in it.

And then there’s Matsuyama, who won for us at 14/1 three years ago and recently did us another favor at Southwind. He hit the ball very well in the Presidents Cup after a strong end to a two-win season and it’s no wonder he’s priced in single digits this time around. However, don’t forget that he won the Masters in 2021 before returning home to cap a dream year. So I don’t know as 8/1 reveals a lot.

I’m happy enough to embrace it and believe that’s where the value lies SUNGJAE IMwho is not as far behind his teammate Matsuyama as the betting suggests.

Even with other factors at play, the Layers had roughly equal chances of scoring the most points in the Presidents Cup, and while Im managed just a single point from five games, the underlying strokes gained numbers suggest that He was a bit unlucky not to contribute more.

In any case, his long game looked good, and if there’s one quality I’m looking for here, it’s approach play. Narashino is a strange golf course where the holes are very different and for once the whole bag gets a good workout. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that three of the very best iron players, Tiger Woods, Morikawa and Matsuyama, have won here, while 2022 champion Keegan Bradley is just one step below them.

Im is averaging 97th this season but has improved significantly of late after a slow start to the season, gaining strokes in eight of his last nine starts, while his strong driving – extremely precise and by no means short – has given him an edge Also has Bradley-like quality.

Third, 29th and 12th place finishes in three starts at the track show how comfortable he is here, and that is partly due to the time he spent on the Japan Tour earlier in his career, a fact which he alluded to in his debut. It’s high time he picked up his third PGA Tour win and for my money he’s the clear threat to the big three, the gap between him and players like Theegala and Justin Thomas is too small.

After being left off the Presidents Cup team, Thomas was able to make a determined attempt, but that means he has been absent for two months. That’s also a concern when it comes to Will Zalatoris, who has returned to some form in the playoffs, although both are fine in terms of the quality of their iron play.

That also applies SI WOO KIM and I’m a little surprised he doesn’t get closer to 20/1 himself.

That’s probably due to a seemingly modest track record, but he was 18th here when he was out of form in 2021, and while 38th on debut was just OK, it came despite an initial 76. In the following three rounds, Kim starred at a high level.

Tree-lined courses like this definitely suit him – Sawgrass, Sedgefield, Waialae and Harbor Town are all among his favorite stops on the PGA Tour – and he’s truly one of the best iron players in the field, ranking 16th this season. Place in the top 10.

The problem with Kim is that he never had a positive year with the putter, a notable fact that shows why he didn’t quite live up to the promise of his PLAYER win seven years ago, but he was better and truly deadly in the playoffs last time at the Presidents Cup.

Perhaps he will always remain a player whose putting ability depends on the format, but given his improved performances at Southwind (9th) and at Colorado (17th), there is actually some evidence that he has reached a new level of confidence with the flat stick.

If that’s the case, he’ll be really dangerous and I’m excited to see how he can build on Royal Montreal, where he was the star at Mike Weir’s Internationals. The list of champions here includes players with very similar statistical profiles to Kim, and he forms a two-pronged Korean attack from somewhere near the top of the market.

One possible angle is to look at last week’s start times and find the ones that were wiped out by massive draw bias. These include Andrew Putnam, one of my favorites in Las Vegas and a former runner-up here, the in-form Beau Hossler, fellow first-placer Maverick McNealy and even runner-up Doug Ghim, who did particularly well to cope with the strong winds of Thursday and Friday overcome .

Unfortunately, none of them were priced appropriately, so it’s back to the Presidents Cup MAX HOMA performed far better than I and many others expected.

Homa arrived there in shock, his missed cut in Silverado contributing to a miserable summer run, and revealing he was without his swing coach in August. Despite his success at the Ryder Cup the previous year, these form problems led to him being on the bench on the first day.

Together with Brian Harman, who was also out of sorts, Homa went 0-2 on Friday and Saturday before finding himself at the bottom of the individual rankings. His 2-1 win over Mackenzie Hughes, when the match was already won, hardly mattered – we can hang up our hats.

However, from a strokes gained perspective, he was actually the best player of the event from tee to green and with his irons, and while those harder-than-usual calculations come with caveats, he also passed the eye test. I felt that Homa was in excellent form and he seemed to think that taking control of his own swing was an important step in the right direction.

We haven’t seen him since and he comes with risks, but he’s a fan of classic courses like this and showed some promise in his only previous start, powering through with a third-round 66 Field moved before scoring a disappointing result. However, that was five years ago and he had done very little since his breakout win in the spring.

Homa showed his class when he traveled to South Africa late last year and won at Sun City, in his first start since a brilliant Ryder Cup performance, and although I would have happily let him go at 28-33/1, 50s must be taken. I strongly believe that his performance over the last month has been dismissed as irrelevant by the market, while I remain open-minded.

Rickie Fowler is another player with strong Japanese connections and he has returned from a break with better play. Presumably he spent part of last week working with Butch Harmon at his Las Vegas base, and without his new baby traveling with him to Tokyo, jet lag might be far less of an issue.

He’s respected with guaranteed motivation, while I’m half wondering if good ball striker Joel Dahmen could find the right answer to last week’s 15-club debacle, he’s one of those badly drawn but three against the big three are enough.

Posted 10/21/24 at 2130 BST

Safer Gambling

We are committed to safer gambling. Recommended bets are recommended to those over 18 years of age and we strongly encourage readers to only bet what they can afford to lose.

If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline. GamCare on 0808 8020 133.

Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org And Gamblingtherapy.org.