Zozo Championship Betting Preview: Great Value on Matsuyama

Looking for some winning golf bets? Here is our 2021 Zozo Championship betting preview with picks and predictions for the outright winners, as well as our favorite matchups and prop bets.

The PGA Tour returns to Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Chiba, Japan for the first time since Tiger Woods’ victory in 2019. The 2020 tournament was held on U.S. soil due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Patrick Cantlay winning by a single stroke over Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas.

There’s a 78-man field in attendance headlined by reigning major champions Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama, as well as Olympic gold medalist Xander Schauffele. Schauffele enters the week as the betting favorite at most regulated U.S. sportsbooks, while Morikawa is the top-ranked player in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR).

Here are my outright, matchup and prop picks for the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship at Accordia Golf Narashino CC in Chiba, Japan.

Zozo Championship odds

Xander Schauffele: +550 (DraftKings Sportsbook) | +650 (FanDuel Sportsbook) | +600 (BetMGM)

Collin Morikawa: +700 | +650 | +700

Hideki Matsuyama: +1200 | +1200 | +1200

Will Zalatoris: +1600 | +1700 | +1600

Tommy Fleetwood: +2200 | +2200 | +2200

Joaquin Niemann: +2200 | +2000 | +2500

Rickie Fowler: +2500 | +2800 | +2500

Jhonnattan Vegas: +2800 | +3300 | +2800

Cameron Tringale: +2800 | +3500 | +3300

Alexander Noren: +2800 | +3500 | +3300

Zozo Championship Betting Odds Analysis

Schauffele and Morikawa are viewed by the sportsbooks as the clear top two favorites with payouts ranging from $550 to $650 and from $650 to $700, respectively, on $100 bets. Matsuyama, the top-ranked Japanese golfer in the field and the reigning Masters champion starts the second tier of betting favorites with a 12-1 return on investment with victory.

Rickie Fowler’s T-3 finish at last week’s CJ Cup jumped him from No. 128 to No. 82 in the OWGR. His odds have also fallen from greater than +5000 last week to below +3000 to win the Zozo Championship.

Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club Betting Profile

Accordia Golf Narashino CC welcomes back the PGA Tour for just the second time after last year’s tournament was relocated. The course is located less than a two-hour drive from Kasumigaseki Country Club, which hosted the men’s and women’s Olympic golf tournaments.

The course has hosted several big events on the Japan Golf Tour. It measures 7,041 yards and plays to a par of 70. Woods won here by three strokes over Hideki Matsuyama at 19-under par in 2019, and they were two of just four players in the field to shoot in the 60s all four rounds.

The three par 5s range from 562 to 608 yards. The 562-yard 18th hole had the lowest scoring average of the week at 0.487 strokes below par. Four of the five par 3s scored below par and five par 4s also had scoring in the red. Four par 4s range from 450 to 500 yards with the longest topping out at 505 yards.

Zozo Championship Key Betting Stats

Only 24 of the 78 golfers in this week’s field played this event in 2019. As noted, no one in the field has more than four measured rounds at Accordia Golf Narashino, but Matsuyama leads the returnees with his 4.16 strokes gained on the field per round. Schauffele, Ryan Palmer and Keegan Bradley also averaged more than two total strokes gained per round while securing top-15 finishes.

Despite being a relatively short course, driving distance is more important than driving accuracy when looking at Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. SG: Around-the-Green should be weighed slightly more heavily than SG: Approach. We should also consider scrambling with the widespread unfamiliarity with the course.

That said, par 4 efficiency: 450-500 yards is my top stat for the week. Scoring was widely prevalent on the par 3s and 5s in 2019 so this common range is where strokes can be gained.

Zozo Championship Betting Picks

To win: Hideki Matsuyama (+1200)

To win: Si Woo Kim (+4000)

To win: James Hahn (+25000)

Tournament matchup: Rickie Fowler vs. Tommy Fleetwood (-126)

Tournament matchup: Ryan Palmer (-110) vs. Matt Wallace

Top American: Will Zalatoris (+1000)

Top-10 finish: Hideki Matsuyama (+170)

Leader after Round 1 and win: Collin Morikawa (+3000)

Zozo Championship Outright Picks

Hideki Matsuyama (+1200 at DraftKings Sportsbook)

Matsuyama is sure to be overly bet based on the minimal course history available to bettors this week, but he still represents excellent value when compared to Schauffele and Morikawa. He’s the third-ranked player in the field at No. 19 in the OWGR, and he has three top-10 finishes this calendar year to go with his 2021 Masters win, including a T-4 finish in the Olympics on native soil.

Though he was just 60th in par 4 scoring from our key distance and tied for 48th in scrambling for the 2020-21 PGA Tour season, he needed to rely on both of those areas to conquer Augusta National Golf Club.

Accordia Golf Narashino is also rated similarly to recent major venues TPC Harding Park and Bethpage Black, where Matsuyama finished T-22 and T-16 at the 2020 and 2019 PGA Championship, respectively.

Si Woo Kim (+4000 at BetMGM)

Kim struggled in his last two events after beginning the 2021-22 season with finishes of T-11 and T-8 at the Fortinet Championship and Sanderson Farms Championship, respectively. He finished last season 33rd on Tour in par 4 efficiency (450-500 yards) with a scoring average of 4.085. He was also 22nd in scrambling for the season, and he’s averaging 0.42 SG: Off-the-Tee through 14 rounds this season.

He offers plenty of value at BetMGM while priced at +3500 at both DraftKings and FanDuel. Kim claimed his third PGA Tour win in January and went on to collect three more top-10 finishes this year, including a T-2 at the Wyndham Championship in mid-August.

James Hahn (+25000 at FanDuel Sportsbook)

This is a very high number for Hahn at FanDuel, compared to +20000 at DraftKings and +15000 at BetMGM. The +25000 odds represent an implied win probability of just 0.40 percent for a golfer with two career PGA Tour wins and two top-10 finishes through 21 events in 2021. Additionally, he had three straight top-10 finishes in last season’s fall swing.

Hahn finished last season 18th on Tour in par 4 efficiency from 450-500 yards and an adequate 93rd in scrambling. He missed the cut at both the Fortinet Championship and the Shriners Children’s Open to start this season but both of those can be chalked up to awful putting performances. The inexperience of the field on the greens in Chiba should help level the playing field.

Zozo Championship Matchup Picks

Rickie Fowler vs. Tommy Fleetwood (-126) at DraftKings

Fowler bounced back from back-to-back missed cuts to tie for third at the CJ Cup last week. Fleetwood, however, opened his 2021-22 season with three straight finishes of T-12 or better on the European Tour before a T-38 finish at the CJ Cup.

The Englishman returns to Chiba following a T-22 finish in 2019. He remains well clear of Fowler in the OWGR and has five international top-10 finishes in 2021 to Fowler’s two. Fade the recency bias.

Ryan Palmer (-110) vs. Matt Wallace at DraftKings

At risk of banking too much on course history, Palmer remains a strong fit for Accordia Golf Narashino following a T-10 in 2019. He tied for 44th last season in par 4 efficiency from our key distance and was 32nd in scrambling.

Wallace was just 182nd in scrambling and 61st in par 4 efficiency.

Zozo Championship Top Prop Picks

Top American: Will Zalatoris (+1000 at BetMGM)

Zalatoris is a decent play with a 10-1 return on investment if willing to fade Schauffele and Morikawa as the top players in a thin and condensed field.

He averaged 0.86 SG: Approach per round last season and has shown some improved driver play this fall.

Top-10 finish: Hideki Matsuyama (+170 at DraftKings)

Still getting plus-money for Matsuyama with nine places of cushion feels like a rare gift from the sportsbooks. He has the course history, local support, and his game is a good fit.

Leader after Round 1 and win: Collin Morikawa (+3000 at DraftKings)

Morikawa shot 17-under par over the weekend at the CJ Cup to surge into a runner-up finish. He was somewhat of a surprise entry to the 2019 Zozo Championship as a 22-year-old, but he tied for 22nd while averaging 1.66 strokes gained on the field per round.

The No. 3 player in the OWGR is a candidate to go wire-to-wire in the thin field and we’re getting better than four times his outright odds to do it.