2020 Zozo Championship: PGA Tour Golf Betting Odds
Woods is the defending champion, but world No. 1 Dustin Johnson is the betting favourite on the golf odds.
Just as last week’s CJ Cup tournament was moved from Korea to Las Vegas because of COVID-19 this year, the Zozo Championship was shifted from Japan to Sherwood Country Club (par 72 at around 7,000 yards) in Thousand Oaks, California. The entire Asia Swing was cancelled this year in part also because players didn’t want to fly that far ahead of the rescheduled Masters, which tees off Nov. 12. This week almost surely will be the last time Tiger and a few other big names play before Augusta.
The Zozo Championship is a field limited to 78 players, meaning no cut and a purse of $8 million (US). A handful of those will be open to players from the Japan Golf Tour. That includes the former No. 1 player on the World Amateur Golf rankings in 22-year-old Takumi Kanaya, who won the McCormack Medal as the world’s top amateur in 2020. Kanaya was the first player from Japan to win that (Canada’s Nick Taylor did in 2009) but just recently turned pro.
Zozo Championship Golf Betting Odds
Johnson is the +900 opening favourite this week despite it being far from a sure thing he plays. That’s because DJ had to withdraw ahead of last week’s CJ Cup after testing positive for COVID-19. He’d have to return some negative tests this week and will not be able to practice on site prior to the tournament regardless. DJ’s soon-to-be father-in-law, Wayne Gretzky, is a member at the club.
World No. 2 Jon Rahm is +1000 with Xander Schauffele. Rahm finished T17 on Sunday in Las Vegas and Schauffele runner-up to long-shot winner Jason Kokrak (+4500 this week), who hadn’t won on the PGA Tour in 322 tries.
Tiger (+3000) hosted his Hero World Challenge “silly-season” tournament at Sherwood Country Club for 13 years and won that five times at the course, finishing second five more times. The Zozo Championship debuted last year outside Tokyo – the first official PGA Tour event in Japan — and Tiger shot a 19-under 261 to beat out second-place Hideki Matsuyama of Japan by three shots.
That was Tiger’s 82nd career win, tying Sam Snead for the most in Tour history. Woods, who led wire-to-wire, is still looking for No. 83. He has not played well in five tournaments since the golf restart following a 13-week shutdown due to the coronavirus. Tiger’s best finish in those five is 37th, and he missed the cut at the US Open.
Sponsor exemptions this week include Justin Rose (+7000), Jordan Spieth (+10000), Tommy Fleetwood (+3500), Rickie Fowler (+5000) and Phil Mickelson (+5500).
Canada’s Corey Conners finished T6 at last year’s Zozo Championship. He entered the final round in contention but shot a 70, easily his worst of the four rounds. Adam Hadwin was T41 at 1 under. Conners was T61 in Vegas on Sunday and is +12500 as is Mackenzie Hughes (65th in Vegas). Hadwin was T28 last week and +15000.
Zozo Championship Golf Predictions
Take Tiger and Schauffele for Top 10s, but the winner is Patrick Reed at +1800. His last PGA Tour start was a T3 at the US Open, but he was T3 two weeks ago the BMW PGA Championship on the European Tour.