PGA: ZOZO Championship Course, Key Stats and Values
PGA: ZOZO Championship Course, Key Stats and Values
The ZOZO Championship will be a co-sanctioned event between the Japan Tour and PGA Tour and you will see familiar names in the likes of Ryo Ishikawa and Shugo Imahira in the field, both rising stars from across the pond. Located in the Chiba Prefecture region, Narashino GC features 36 holes for its members, two sets of 18 holes named the “Kings” and “Queens” course. Ironically, because it’s the inaugural event, our field will compete on the Queen’s course, it sits at 7,041 yards and will play to a par of 70. They most likely want a low scoring birdie fest to showcase the PGA Stars in their best form.
The course has a very interesting set up, it sports 10 Par 4s most in the 400-490 yards range, but there are two in particular that play only 386 yards and 363 yards which will leave most of our long hitters within wedge distance given an accurate shot, or even on the green if the right conditions are presented. We have FIVE Par 3’s this week, this a notion that is not very customary on American courses, as the mindset in the States is usually to make the courses longer to increase difficulty. The remainder of the holes are of course the customary par 5’s topping out at only 587 yards.
This week will more than likely favor the ball strikers and those who prioritize accuracy over length (Think Paul Casey). We don’t have exact figures on the rough length, but after watching the Skins Challenge, you’d have noticed that it’s not the thickest and most penalizing. Our four featured players Monday did not seem to have too much trouble in the primary rough, in fact Tiger made birdie at a few holes after some of his famous wayward drives.
If you were to look at the course map on the ZoZo Championship website you’ll notice many of the holes have two greens, and some holes will even share a green. Although this may seem odd to us, Japanese golf courses are famous for adopting this “two-green” method to withstand climate changes, rather than seed the greens with a certain grass type to withstand all types drastic measures. The Japanese culture take their sports very seriously and having brown spots or poorly maintained putting surfaces are out of the question. The summers in the Chiba region tend to be extremely hot and humid, and the Winters the latter with short with considerably cooler conditions. Narashino thus will have a set of greens engineered for the Summer temperatures and set geared for the Winter on most of the holes that come into play.
The summer greens are mostly comprised of a hybrid grass of Zoysia and Bermuda, or a mixed bentgrass variety, the winter greens naturally are seeded with purely Bentgrass. Given the climate of the region dipping down into the cooler temperatures of high to lower 60’s with rain in the forecast and the fact that both sets of greens at Narashino are of the Bentgrass variety, our golfers this week will be putting on the Winter greens which sport the pure bentgrass. They are rolling to an estimated 12ft on the stimpmeter, relatively fast and they seem exceptionally tricky with a lot of slope and undulation. I will estimate the green sizes to be around 5,000-6,000 square feet making GIR percentage a little lower than average, with this to account for we can add a little scrambling to the mix especially since water will come into play in several holes at Narashino.
Since this is the first time a PGA event is played on this course, and in Japan, we don’t have any strokes gained data to build off of at this particular track. Below I have comprised a list of Key Stats to prioritize based on similar courses in setup from Europe which tend to have some similarities. They are ranked in order of importance below. You might also be wondering WHY the tour decided to host an event in Japan after so many years of hosting in various other venues across Asia. The 2020 Olympics are just around the corner in Tokyo, and they have a very special course built nearby Chiba for the Golf competition that was surprisingly popular in Brazil 4 years ago. By attracting new viewers to the sport, they are doing their best to promote the Olympic games which will see Justin Rose return to defend his Gold Medal.
KEY STATS:
SG: BALL STRIKING
SG: OFF THE TEE
SG: PROXIMITY 150-175 Yards
SG: PAR 3 EFFICIENCY
SG: PAR 4 EFFICIENCY 400-450 YARDS
BIRDIES OR BETTER GAINED
SG PUTTING: BENTGRASS
I will use these stats and account for the last 12-24 rounds from each respective player in the field to narrow down the difficult selections. There are several presumably low owned and value players that have also entered the fold from other tours, 10 coming from the top rankings on the Japan tour and 8 sponsors exemptions. We will look to provide some salary relief for the big guns on the next slide. As always you can find stats on the PGA Tour’s Website, and this time you’ll want to visit the Japan Tour as well.