Each week in our golf power rankings, we will highlight the top players on the PGA Tour in order of likeliness to win the tournament. Check out the best golf betting sites to take advantage of some elite sign-up promos at the top US betting sites.
Factors coming into play on the rankings are (in no order):
- Recent form: How the player has performed in various aspects of his game in recent weeks.
- Course history: How the player has performed at the host course if he has previously played there.
- Course fit: Used as a secondary or backup to course history, fit looks at certain skills that translate to success on the host course.
- Strokes gained: Strokes gained will come into play in all of the factors above. Unless otherwise noted, strokes gained stats are taken from the player’s last 50 rounds and are a way to use golf statistics relative to the field and round played.
Using the guidelines above to create a statistical model, value can be found in the betting market by highlighting players whose outlook for the tournament may be flying under the radar to the general public.
The weighted model this week includes:
- 25% SG: Approach
- 20% Good Drives Gained
- 20% Greens in Regulations Gained
- 15% SG: Around the Green
- 10% Par 4: 350-400 Yards
- 10% SG: Putting (Bent)
This Week: ZOZO Championship
- Date: October 24-27, 2024
- Location: Chiba, Japan
- Course: Accordia Golf Narashino CC
- How to watch: Golf Channel
- Purse: $: 8,500,000
- Defending champ: Collin Morikawa
ODDS FOR ZOZO Championship
Compare ZOZO Championship odds below.
POWER RANKINGS: Zozo Championship
20. Seamus Power (+5000): Ended a nice stretch of play with a MC at the Shriners last week. Nothing was overly concerning in a wild week, as he just slightly lost strokes in a few categories. This will be his debut at the ZOZO, but I don’t see why it can’t be a nice course fit for him. Ranks 27th in the model.
19. Tom Hoge (+5500): Hoge also missed the cut at Shriners and was all out of whack, but I’m not putting too much stock into the tournament with the crazy splits and strange week overall. He’s played here three times and was 9th in 2022. It’s a very nice course fit for him if he can hole some putts. Ranks 37th in the model.
18. Min Woo Lee (+2500): Lee only had an okay year mostly due to a volatile putter. He really needs to lend on the flat stick since his irons are rarely very good, meaning he has to use distance and a hot putter to make his money. This isn’t the best course fit for him, even though he’s one of the better players in the field. Ranks 57th in the model.
17. Maverick McNealy (+4000): McNealy got back on track at the Shriners with a solid 16th despite losing strokes on the greens. He’s lost strokes there in three straight starts, which is a bit concerning for a player who does most of his work there. But you’d expect him to get it going there shortly, and if he finds fairways here, he could contend. He was 12th here in 2022. Ranks 26th in the model.
16. Si Woo Kim (+4000): Si Woo will make his first start since a 5th at the BMW Championship, which gave him a run at making the Tour Championship and an impressive showing at the Presidents Cup. He was playing some mediocre golf for much of the year before that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds a hot stretch now. Ranks 44th in the model.
15. Chan Kim (+7000): He’s played this event a few times before he became a PGA Tour cardholder. Kim had some nice moments in 2024 and has long shown himself to be a very capable ball striker. The putter can be an issue at times, as it was in a MC at the Shriners, but he often places well when he gains strokes with it. Ranks 9th in the model.
14. Patrick Fishburn (+7000): He drives it well, finds a ton of greens, and can light it up at times with the putter. There’s not much to hate about Fishburn’s game outside of some poor scrambling, but he finds enough greens to where it’s often not an issue. He’s lost some momentum since the Procore, but this could be a good spot to find it again. Ranks 12th in the model.
13. Ben Griffin (+7500): Griffin needs to find more consistency with his irons and putter, as he again struggled there in a missed cut at the Shriners. He can often shine in those categories, which is needed since he’s so bad off the tee usually. One thing that almost never fails him is some brilliant scrambling. Ranks 11th in the model.
12. Matt Kuchar (+9000): Kuchar has now gone 14th, MC, 13th, 12th, 3rd in his last 5 starts, which is showing a bit of a resurgence for the veteran who had seemed to lose his way at times lately. The iron play has been very good, which will be necessary for someone who lacks the driving needed on many courses now. His short game is as good as ever. Ranks 4th in the model.
11. Andrew Putnam (+4500): Putnam was 2nd here in his last start in 2022 and seems to really be trending in the right direction right now. He was 16th last week despite losing 3.3 strokes off the tee. As a fairway finder, he should be fine around this course, and the rest of his game was in top form overall. Ranks 14th in the model.
10. Beau Hossler (+3000): Hossler was 2nd here last year and looked like the potential winner heading into the weekend. He’s incredibly due for that first PGA Tour win, as he most recently missed a great chance with a runner-up at the Sanderson. With his irons in solid form, he doesn’t have a weakness currently. Ranks 18th in the model.
9. J.J. Spaun (+5000): He also had some nice form at the ZOZO, with a 6th here last year and a 25th in 2022. The game is in very solid form for Spaun, as he’s gaining a healthy amount of shots with his ball striking every single week. The putter has cooled off recently, but I could see him winning this thing if he
8. Kurt Kitayama (+1600): The irons continue to be piping hot for Kitayama, as he’s now gained 24.1 strokes on approach in his last 4 starts. That’s with him losing 0.2 strokes in a MC at the Wyndham. The flat stick does continue to be an issue, but he’s played solidly in a couple of tries here and would just need to be average to contend. Ranks 7th in the model.
7. Justin Thomas (+2200): We haven’t seen Justin Thomas since the Tour Championship, where he played fairly well in a 14th. It was a bit of a bounceback year for Thomas, but he’ll still want much more, including a first victory since the 2022 PGA. Thomas was 2nd here in 2020. Ranks 23rd in the model.
6. Doug Ghim (+4500): This will be the debut for Ghim here at the ZOZO, but it should be a lovely course fit for him. Things may be coming together again for the uber talented ball striker. As we’ve stated plenty, he putted well and nearly won last week at the Shriners. He’s been putting on a clinic from tee to green. Ranks 3rd in the model.
5. Hideki Matsuyama (+800): He won here in 2021 for a popular win, but he hasn’t followed it up with a whole lot since. Matsuyama still deals with some injury problems, unfortunately, but the form has been superb when he’s able to tee it up freely. He won at the St. Jude at the start of the Playoffs and had another lovely season. Ranks 17th in the model.
4. Sungjae Im (+1400): Sungjae has unsurprisingly played some nice golf around here. It’s set up perfectly for his game when he’s finding fairways off the tee. After a slow start to the year, he played some fantastic golf from May onward and finished it up with great golf at the Tour Championship. Ranks 15th in the model.
3. Sahith Theegala (+2000): He had a great experience at the Presidents Cup after an incredibly impressive 3rd at the Tour Championship and 7th at the Procore. Theegala is certainly in the class of elite players on the PGA Tour now but is likely ready to step it up in majors. He’s been 5th and 19th at the ZOZO. Ranks 10th in the model.
2. Collin Morikawa (+650): The defending champion at the ZOZO was absolutely dominant in a 6-stroke victory last year. It came after some relatively poor play at this course beforehand, but it’s a track that makes plenty of sense for him. 2024 was actually a huge season for Morikawa as he returned to some great form but was unable to capture a victory. Ranks 2nd in the model.
1. Xander Schauffele (+450): This is a tournament that is likely very important to Schauffele, and he’ll come into it as the undisputed best player in the field and perhaps closer to the best player in the world than some would think. He hasn’t had his best stuff here, and he’ll need to really focus on finding enough fairways. But Schauffele has been at another level this season and would surprise nobody with a victory. Ranks 1st in the model.
Course Preview: Accordia Golf Narashino CC
Narashino Country Club was designed in 1976 by Kinya Fujita and is a classical Japan-style golf course located just outside of Tokyo in Chiba. We’ve only gotten to see it four times – the first was Tiger Woods’ record-tying, rain-soaked victory in 2019, followed by Hideki Matsuyama’s popular win in 2021. Narashino has hosted some big events on the Japan Golf Tour throughout its history before landing a PGA Tour event. Gary Player and Seve Ballesteros are two of the notable names to have won here.
As a Par 70 that is expected to run at around 7,000 yards, Narashino is certainly a short course by PGA Tour standards. But the layout and the distribution of that yardage is quite unique and unlike something we’ll see all year on the Tour schedule. Ten Par 4s, five Par 3s, and three Par 5s are unique enough – so is the Par 34/Par 36 setup of the nines, but it’s the strange yardages of the Par 4s that really sets Narashino apart. There are no Par 4s on the course that runs between 426 and 485 yards.
The other thing we’ll see this week but won’t really be in play much is the double greens on each hole at Narashino. This is common in Japan due to the extremes of the climate … the Bent greens are used in cooler months, while the other greens are used in the hot months to let the Bent get a break. We’ll see Bent this week, but the Tour has thrown in the usage of other greens in the past here.
We don’t have much valuable data here since only four tournaments have been hosted, and there’s been no shot tracking for any rendition. We do get basic statistics, though, and just looking at the leaderboard showed that elite iron players seemed to be the play so far. Any time you see guys like Tiger Woods, Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley, Collin Morikawa, Brendan Steele, and Corey Conners at the top, you know that irons are favored.
We’ll take a big premium on SG: Approach and Greens in Regulations Gained for our model this week. This tight, parkland-style course in Japan also has tiny greens, so I prefer guys who can play for the middle of the green instead of flag hunters. Green percentages have played well and should continue this week.
Along with that, I’m going with Good Drives Gained for the driving statistic. Distance isn’t overly important on most parkland courses in Japan because of the amount of doglegs and how tight it plays. The rough is decently thick here, so keeping it out of the trees and in play to hit a green is what we care about.
The short game will likely need to be tidy with such small greens, so we’ll look at SG: Around the Green at a decent chunk. Putting will be hard to predict with a different grass type, so while I’ll throw it lightly in the model, it’s not being weighed much at all on these small greens.