3 Free Bets for the 2024 Zozo Championship

After a wind-whipping week in Vegas, we head across the globe for the Zozo Championship in Japan. 

This event attracts more star power than we’ve seen in recent weeks. It’s also a limited field of just 78 golfers. That means four guaranteed rounds of action, barring any WDs. Of course, with the return of some bigger names, it also means more ambiguity when it comes to recent form. Have these studs been staying sharp over the last two months or put the clubs away and may need to shake off some rust? These are all factors to consider but first let’s talk a bit about the host course.

Course Fit

This week’s host course is Narashino Country Club. It’s a par 70 that typically plays between 7,000 and 7,100 yards. 

While it’s often described as traditional or a classic course, it’s untraditional in the makeup of the holes. There are three par 5s and five par 3s.  It’s a good blend of some really short holes while also forcing golfers to hit mid irons on some of the longer par 4s. 

When you listen to what golfer say here, many from the Northern States or California say it reminds of them of home.

As Keegan Bradley put it, “This golf course reminds me a lot of the courses that I grew up on, tree lined, have to hit the fairways, bentgrass greens. It’s just a great golf course, small little greens.“ 

Andrew Putnam said something similar, “This course feels a lot like home, northwest golf. Obviously the clouds, I’m used to that, a lot of trees, and greens are rolling really smooth, so feel pretty comfortable out here.“ 

Will Zalatoris added, “I think the weather kind of reminds me of the Bay area a little bit where I was born in San Francisco. The ball doesn’t really go very far because it’s pretty heavy air.” 

Common themes talked about are comfort on tree-lined tracks with bentgrass greens. Those will be two split stat categories we hone in on this week. Multiple golfers have also thrown out the Augusta National comp due to the great agronomy combined with speedy, sloped greens. So, let’s add performance on fast greens to our course-fit search as well. 

Here are the names who show the biggest increase in performance when playing courses with similar splits (fast greens, tree-lined, bentgrass greens), relative to their baseline. 

• Rickie Fowler
• Ryan Fox
• Gary Woodland
• Will Zalatoris
• Jhonattan Vegas
• Andrew Putnam
• Chandler Phillips
• Eric Cole
• Victor Perez
• Brendon Todd

Fowler is a monster (in a good way) on tree-lined tracks but is that enough to overcome his declining baseline performance in recent years? 

Head over to the Split Stats page to see who the top performers are in these split stat categories.

Outright Odds

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

Thanks to a smaller field and the return of some superstars, we see some single-digit outright prices this week. I would say Xander and Morikawa definitely deserve those prices while Matsuyama is likely getting the Japanese narrative boost in his price. 

Shriners Children’s Open Free Golf Bets

Jhonattan Vegas Top 20 Finish (+180)

There are just seven golfers in this field who are gaining more than 10 yards over Tour average with their drives in the last six months. Vegas is the only one of those golfers who has also piped more fairways than the field over that time frame. 

His driver is dialed in which is a recipe for success on any course. He’s also gained with his irons in seven of his last eight starts.  

When isolating to courses with similar splits, adjusting for field size, he’s landed top 20s in 44% of his starts over the last two years which implies a fair price closer to +125 rather than the +180 we are getting. 

Eric Cole Top 20 Finish (+163)

He was very comfortable in his first visit to Narashino, “I played a lot of different but similar courses in Florida.” He posted a runner-up finish that week and now he’s back for second helpings. 

He had a rough missed cut from the right side of the weather draw last week but he boasts top 20s in 5 of his last 10 starts so we shouldn’t let one bad week ruin everything. 

Returning to a course that suits him well, I like his price here.  

Matt Kuchar to Win 75-1 (one-fourth each-way for 5 places)

He pulled through for our top-20 bet last week and flirted with the each-way portion of his outright. 

Kuchar now has top 15s in four of his last five starts and we’ve pointed out his stellar iron play this summer, but the market is still pricing him like he’s in a slump still. 

The each-way portion of this bet pays out 18-1 while his market consensus top-5 price is around 10-1. If you wanted to take a more conservative approach here, you could grab the 66-1 each-way outright at Bet365 that includes a one-fifth payout for 8 spots (13-1) which is still better than the consensus top-5 price elsewhere in the market. 

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