2023 Zozo Championship Betting Preview

The PGA Tour heads to Japan this week for the Zozo Championship at Narashino Country Club. 

We’ve seen this course host three times in the past, with the winners being Tiger Woods, Hideki Matsuyama and Keegan Bradley. Not too shabby. The latter two will be teeing it up again this week in hopes of collecting more hardware. There are plenty of obstacles in their way, though, most notably Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa who top the odds board. 

Let’s jump right in to find out what golfers should be on our betting radar this week. 

Course Fit

The first step of the process is always to evaluate the course. 

When looking for course-fit clues, we can look at past performance at an event or leading up to an event. Or we can sift through the player quotes to see how they break things downs. 

I like to mix and match both methods. For Narashino when I look at past performance the two split stats that popped were performance on bentgrass greens and performance on fast greens. When you read the quotes, it is the latter that catches people’s attention. 

“The complexes, the most similar thing that I would say is to Augusta with how much slope they have and the speed.” — Brendan Steele

“Walking onto the driving range, you could see how just perfect everything was manicured, and the greens are extremely fast and some of us were making comparisons to Augusta just given the slopes and how fast the greens were.” — Will Zalatoris

When you get multiple Augusta National comps thrown out, you know the greens are speedy and slope-y. With a no-cut format this week, let’s focus on upside and look at top-20 worthy performance on fast greens over the last two years: 

Xander Schauffele
Keegan Bradley
Hideki Matsuyama
Justin Suh
Collin Morikawa
Sungjae Im
Min Woo Lee
Sahith Theegala
Adam Scott
Mark Hubbard

Justin Suh and Mark Hubbard would be the two “surrpises” on this list. They could be worth a look in the finish-position or head-to-head markets this week. You can check the splits stats page if you want to see fast greens performance versus a golfer’s baseline to see who has overperformed or underperformed on speedy surfaces. 

Outright Odds

Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:

Eight of the 10 names from the fast greens list above also appear on this list, so not a lot of surprises at the top of the board. 

Finish Position Market

The outright markets are most common when looking at golf bets but there is plenty of value to be found in the other markets. 

Ryo Hisatsune Top 20 Finish

Best available: +225 (BetRivers)
Worst available: +180

I’ve been highlighting him all year on the DP World circuit, and he paid off in a big way with his recent win at the Open de France. He didn’t impress last week but did show up in the time zone to get acclimated, twirling a T-45 at a Japan Golf Tour event. 

The bookmakers continually underprice the 21-year-old which has led him to be a plug-and-play option most of the year on DraftKings and the top-20 markets. He’s delivered with top-20 finishes in eight of his last 16 starts. 

I know the strength of competition is tougher, but I thought the books would clamp down on his price so shortly after his breakout win, playing in his home country. That’s not the case as he ranks 23rd in weighted baseline performance this week but is outside of the top 40 in the top-20 markets. 

Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays. Hop in the Discord to get those bet alerts. 

It may feel like a down period for PGA betting or PGA DFS but I’m extremely pumped for this FedEx Fall Series. Use promo code CULP when signing up for FTNBets and FTNDaily to get a 10% discount while staying sharp in the fall. I think it’s going to be a very fun finish to 2023 with so much of the competition having their attention stolen away by NFL.