2023 Zozo Championship: PGA Tour Golf Betting Odds

The tournament is the first event sanctioned by the PGA Tour in that golf-mad country.

The Zozo Championship is one of the newer events on Tour as it dates to 2019 when Tiger Woods prevailed, leading wire-to-wire, to tie Sam Snead for the most all-time PGA Tour victories with 82. Tiger hasn’t won since and probably won’t again due to his health problems and that he may only be limited to major championships going forward – if he can even play those.

Due to the COVID pandemic, the Zozo shifted to California for 2020 but has been back in Japan the past two years. It is sanctioned by both the PGA Tour and the Japan Golf Tour (so a handful of players from there) and has a limited field of around 78 players so there is no cut. Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Chiba (east of Tokyo) is the host and is a par 70 at about 7,079 yards. It mixes nine holes each from the club’s King Course and Queen Course and there are five par 3s and three par 5s.

This is part of the new FedEx Fall Series and those events generally feature very weak fields. This week’s is good because there are obvious marketing opportunities available for some well-known golfers in Japan. When Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama claimed the title in 2021, it was practically a national holiday.

The defending champion is American Keegan Bradley – and he was our pick at +2500 in 2022. He shot a final-round 2-under 68 to finish at 15-under 265 to edge out Rickie Fowler and Andrew Putnam by a shot. It was Bradley’s first PGA Tour win in just over four years (2018 BMW Championship) and fifth career. Bradley said he took inspiration from Tiger after playing 36 holes with him at the 2019 event.

“Watching him up close was spectacular,” he said. “I was thinking about it the whole day today, just remembering Tiger, how he walked a little slower then. So I just tried to do that.”

Bradley has since added title No. 6 on the Tour, capturing the Travelers Championship the week after the U.S. Open in June. No player has won here twice and Bradley is +2000 to be the first.

Zozo Championship Golf Odds

World No. 6 Xander Schauffele is the highest-ranked player in the field and +750 favourite. He hasn’t finished worse than 28^th in the three times this has been held in Japan. Schauffele was part of the losing American Ryder Cup team and his last PGA Tour event was a T2 at the season-ending Tour Championship.

Collin Morikawa is +1000 with Hideki Matsuyama, Rickie Fowler and Sungjae Im at +1600, and Sahith Theegala +1800. As noted above, Matsuyama won here in 2021. Fowler had that runner-up last year and Theegala was fifth, while Im was third in 2019 and 29^th last year. Theegala won the Fortinet Championship on the PGA Tour last month. Morikawa, having a disappointing year, has a best finish of seventh here.

No Canadians have won this event. Mackenzie Hughes was T23 in 2022, Corey Conners T25 and Adam Svensson T59. Svensson is +4000 this week with Nick Taylor +5000 and Mackenzie Hughes +10000.