Baycurrent Classic: The Punter's Preview

Baycurrent Classic tournament history

This is the only the eighth staging of the Baycurrent Classic, formerly known as the ZOZO Championship, an event co-sanctioned between the PGA Tour and the Japan Tour.

Tiger Woods won the inaugural edition (his 82^nd and last victory) but due to the pandemic, the 2020 edition was staged at the Sherwood Country Club in California.

We returned to Japan five years ago to witness a facile victory for the home hero, Hideki Matsuyama, and Keegan Bradley, Collin Morikawa and Chile's Nico Echavarria won the next three editions at Narashino Country Club.

Xander Schuffele won last year's edition at a new venue - the Yokohama Country Club - and we're back there again this year.

Venue

Yokohama Country Club, Yokohama, Japan.

Course details

There are two courses at Yokohama - the East and the West and this week's layout, as it was 12 months ago, is a composite of the two, using 16 holes from the West Course and two from the East.

The West Course was originally designed by Takeo Aiyama, the club's founding chairman, but between 2014 and 2016, it was modernized through renovations by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

Coore and Crenshaw are quoted as saying this about the course post renovation.

"We at Coore & Crenshaw have great respect for classic golf courses that have long contributed to establishing the traditions of the game.

We believe that the late Chairman Takeo Aiyama and his colleagues created something very special, designing a golf course that made use of the natural valleys, ridges, and vegetation of the land, resulting in a layout that is both wonderful and unique.

Our task was to maintain the original features created by Chairman Aiyama and his associates, while also adapting the course to match the modern game of golf--making it both interesting and challenging for the world's most accomplished players, and above all, ensuring that Club members could continue to enjoy playing as much as before, if not more.

We are proud of the finished work on the West Course renovation through this project, and deeply honoured to have become a part of its history, as well as part of the Club's vision for golf in Japan."

The clip below provides a good feel for the course.

Weather Forecast

TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 4:00 on Thursday morning in the UK.

First seven winners with pre-event Betfair Exchange prices

2019 - Tiger Woods -19 50.049/1
2020 - Patrick Cantlay -23 44.043/1 (Sherwood CC)
2021 - Hideki Matsuyama -15 14.013/1
2022 - Keegan Bradley -15 36.035/1
2023 - Collin Morikawa -14 16.015/1
2024 - Nico Echavarria -20 400.0399/1
2025 - Xander Schauffele -19 13.525/2

A statistical look at the 2025 Baycurrent Classic

We only have last year's edition to look back on at this venue and no Strokes Gained stats were produced but for what it's worth, here's the top three with traditional stats.

(Key: DD - Driving Distance; DA - Driving Accuracy; GIR - Greens in Regulation; SC - Scrambling; PA - Putting Average)

Xander Schauffele-19 - DD: 23, DA: 7, GIR: 3, SC: 6, PA: 17
Max Greyserman-18 - DD: 8, DA: 56, GIR: 29, SC: 1, PA: 2
Michael Thorbjornsen -16 - DD: 30, DA: 28, GIR: 2, SC: 11, PA: 30

Although two of the front three ranked inside the top three for Greens In Regulation, Scrambling was the most important stat last year.

The worst any of the first nine on the final leaderboard ranked was 11^th and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who finished tied for 10^th with three others, ranked fourth.

Previous tournaments at Yokohama

The Japan Open, won by Yuki Inamori, was staged around the West Course in 2018, soon after the renovation by Coole and Crenshaw, and Yokohama also staged the 2023 and 2024 editions of the Yokohama Minato Championship on the Japan Tour, won three years ago by a player familiar to DP World Tour fans, Keita Nakajima, and by Yonezawa Ren a year later.

Inamori won with a 270 (-14) total, and Nakajima won with a total of 271 (-13) but last year's course winner, Ren, amassed a total of 22-under-par, suggesting the layout is gettable in benign conditions but that all depends on how the course is set up.

Other Coole and Crenshaw designs on the PGA Tour

Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw were responsible for the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Hawaii which up until 2025 hosted The Sentry every January and they also renovated Pinehurst No.2 in 2011 prior to the 2024 US Open won in dramatic fashion by Bryson DeChambeau.

Top class players have prevailed

The cream rose to the top in the first five editions and the two-time major winner, Xander Schauffele, claimed the spoils last year.

Nico Echavarria, in 2024, is the only victor that can't be described as straight out of the top drawer but he's still a three-time winner on the PGA Tour.

Patrick Cantlay, who won at Sherwood, hasn't won a major but the first four winners at Narashino CC were all major champions, and another major winner, Justin Thomas, traded at odds-on two years ago when Echavarria won. 

In-running trends at Yokohoma

With only four results to go on, we don't really have a big enough sample size to draw too many conclusions but for what it's worth, all four course winners were sitting first of second with 18 to play and all four were within four strokes after round one so concentrating on the leaders from early on may make sense.

Nakajima trailed by six in a tie for 10^th at halfway three years ago before rounds of 67 and 66 saw him win by a stroke, but the other three course winners were all inside the top four at halfway.

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