ZOZO Championship: Matsuyama to defend in his homeland

• Look to Augusta for Narashino clues
• Xander a worthy favourite
• Matsuyama the man to follow in Japan

Tournament History

This is the fourth staging of the ZOZO Championship, an event co-sanctioned between the PGA Tour and the Japan Tour - although it's not an official event for the latter.

Tiger Woods won the inaugural edition (his 82nd and last victory) but due to the pandemic, the 2020 edition was staged at the Sherwood Country Club in California. We returned to Japan last year to witness a facile victory for the home hero, Hideki Matsuyama.

The ZOZO Championship is a limited field event with 15 of the 78 entrants being members of the Japan Golf Tour.

Venue

Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club, Inzai, Chiba, Japan

Course Details

Par 70, 7, 079 yards
Stroke Average in 2021 - 70.48

Narashino CC is a 36-hole facility, made up of two courses called the King and Queen.

The ZOZO Championship is played on a composite of the two with five par threes and five par fives.

The competition course is 38 yards longer this year as the par three fifth can now play as long as 205 yards, after an increase of 14 yards, and the par four 10th has been extended by 24 yards.

Older golf courses in Japan were built with two greens on every hole so golf could be played no matter what time of year. Having two greens meant they could present different strains of healthy grass regardless of the season. Narashino, which opened in 1965, is one such course, although bentgrass blankets the greens there now and the two green system is no longer necessary.

The aim this year is to have the greens running as fast as 12.5 on the Stimpmeter. That's slightly faster than last year's 12 and the 11.5 they ran at three years ago.

To honour the tradition of two greens in Japan, both the A and B greens on the par four fourth hole were used during the inaugural tournament. The two-green treatment shifted to the fifth hole last year and that system will be in place on that hole again this year.

If a golfer lands on the incorrect green, the "wrong green" local rule will be enforced. It will allow the golfer relief off the green no closer the hole and no penalty will be assessed.

The course is tree-lined and fairly-narrow and the greens look smaller than average. Due to the tournament being staged slightly earlier this year, the rough is expected to be slightly lusher than previously encountered.

Weather Forecast

TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, beginning at 4:00 UK time each day

First Three Winners with Pre-event 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

What Will it Take to Win the ZOZO Championship?

I've seen no published stats for last year's renewal, but I have read that the winner, Matsuyama, ranked first for Greens In Regulation and second for Scrambling.

There were no Strokes Gained statistics and no Driving Distance stats produced for the inaugural staging. But here's the top-five from 2019, together with their scores and available stats.

Tiger Woods -19 DA 7 GIR 3 SC 26 PA 2
Hideki Matsuyama -16 DA 29 GIR 7 SC 19 PA 1
Rory McIlroy -13 DA 13 GIR 20 SC 11 PA 12
Sungjae Im -13 DA 47 GIR 39 SC 7 PA 4
Gary Woodland -13 DA 3 GIR 3 SC 4 PA 33

DA Driving Accuracy
GIR Greens In Regulation
SC Scrambling
PA Putting Average

Ranking as high as third and seventh for Greens In Regulation, and second and first for Putting Average, Tiger Woods and Matsuyama finished the week six and three strokes ahead of the rest in 2019.

Is There an Angle In?

Rory McIlroy famously traded at long odds-on at the US Masters in 2011, Sungjae Im finished second to Dustin Johnson in 2020 on his first appearance at Augusta National and the two course winners, Woods and Matsuyama, won the year's first major either side of DJ.

Like Narashino, Augusta is tree-lined so anyone who's shown a liking for that course should enjoy this one.

It's also worth looking back to the Olympics played at the Kasumigaseki Country Club in Saitama last year. That too is a traditional tree-lined Japanese course so it's an obvious place to look for clues.

Woods in 2019 and Matsuyama last year both outscored everyone on the par threes and the Par 3 performance stats might be worth checking out given 20 of the 72 holes played this week are short ones.

In-Play Tactics

Tiger won wire-to-wire in 2019 and Matsuyama was in front at halfway having sat second after round one so it may pay to concentrate on the early leaders this week.

The course ends with one hard hole and one easy one. The long par four 17th ranked as the hardest hole here in 2019 and it was the second toughest last year, whereas the par five 18th has been the easiest encountered in each of the two editions staged here. That's well worth bearing in mind if you're trading in-running on Sunday.

With the 17th half a stroke harder than the 18th, anyone playing 18, and especially if they've driven and found the fairway, should be favoured over anyone behind them who still has the 17th to play.

Market Leaders

There are plenty of positives for the pre-event favourite, Xander Schauffele, who has Japanese grandparents.

The world number six won his Olympic gold in Japan last year and, having finished tied for second behind Woods in the US Masters in 2019 and third behind Matsuyama last year, he has strong Augusta form. He played very nicely in the Presidents Cup a couple of weeks ago, he's won a couple of PGA Tour events in the last four months, and he ranked fourth for Par 3 Performance on the PGA Tour last year.

He was a disappointing 28th last year, having finished 10th in 2019, and his underwhelming course form is arguably the only negative. In addition to winning his Olympic gold here, he was also runner-up in the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament in Japan in 2017 so he clearly enjoys returning to Japan.

Hideki Matsuyama is already a course specialist, and he has a fabulous overall record in his homeland with nine victories from 48 starts (19% strike-rate).

His form is nothing to write home about but it's not worth worrying about given how poorly he was playing prior to last year's renewal.

"If my game scored 10 out of 10 at the Masters, now I would say it scores less than 1," he said prior to the off. "I will be struggling this week, but I am here in Japan so I am motivated to be in contention."

And he had this to say after his win: "On the driving range, my balls were all over and not consistent," he said on Sunday, "but once at the golf course, I was able to feed off of the energy of the crowd."

Selection

We saw two players contend strongly at venues at which they were familiar last week and I'm more than happy to play Matsuyama here at a course he clearly loves.

Following his third to Tom Kim on Sunday, Patrick Cantlay now has form figures at TPC Summerlin reading 1-2-2-8-2 and following his third Open de España title in four years, Jon Rahm now has Club de Campo Villa de Madrid form reading 1-17-1. And he traded at odds-on in-running when finishing 17th!

Matsuyama is understandably shortening all the time on the Betfair Exchange but you can still get 14/1 with the Sportsbook in their Enhanced Win Only market.

I'll be back tomorrow with the Find Me a 100 Winner column.

*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter