The PGA Tour heads back to Japan for the ZOZO Championship and all eyes will be on home favourite and defending champion Hideki Matsuyama.
This is just the third time the tournament will be played at Narashino Country Club after the 2020 edition was moved to California due to the pandemic.
Matsuyama won last time out but he also finished as runner up in 2019, so if there is a course specialist, even though it is hard to call him that with just two starts here, then it is the former Masters champion. The home crowd will be backing him and with his great record at this track it is perhaps surprising that he is not favourite.
But 11/1 shows he is well backed and it is easy to see why. The course suits his game so well. At this time of the year when the PGA Tour heads to various parts of the world, backing players that have good course form, or at least good form in the region, can become even more valuable.
The favourite for the event is Xander Schauffele who can be backed at 8/1. He has Japanese grandparents and clearly enjoys coming to the country. He had a top 10 in 2019 and of course won the Olympics in Tokyo as well as a runner up finish in 2017 in the country. On top of that he has been one of the best players in the world over the past few months. Back-to-back wins this summer were nothing more than he deserved and he is going to be very backable at this event that has a strong field, but perhaps not the depth that other events have had of late.
Tom Kim won last week as he continued his rise to golf stardom. He is South Korean but will have plenty of backing this week. He was absolutely electric at the Presidents Cup a couple of weeks ago and found a way to carry that into last week. We do see quite often that after a win a player has a bit of a down week, but it would be no surprise to see him contending again this week. He looks destined for greatness. He has been compared to Tiger Woods and while that may be a bit soon, if he can have even half the success then it would be huge for the global game.
Another player in great form is Sungjae Im. He is without a win in over a year but he has been playing some excellent golf of late. For a player that is so often in and around the top 10, he should perhaps have more than the two victories at this level, and that is of course a worry when backing him, but in this sort of field he has the class to contend again and with a bit more luck at the right times, he could be looking at his third win on Sunday.
Over on the LIV Tour the players head to Jeddah for the latest event, with Dustin Johnson a strong favourite to win on a course he has been victor on twice before. He has already been confirmed as the order of merit after contending at nearly every event, but he has just one win so far and will be looking to put that right here. He has perhaps more experience here than anybody in the field and that could be key. With the team championship just three weeks away he will be hoping to set up his 4 Aces for another great run.
After looking like they were going to be awarded world ranking points last week, the OWGR announced that they would in fact not be allowing that to happen after LIV announced a partnership with the MENA Tour. That is also the case here this week and it will be a blow to those players that were hoping to stick around in the all important end of year top 50 that allows them entry to the majors for next season.
