Greetings, and welcome to a weekly feature on RickRunGood.com. My name is Andy Lack, I host the Inside Golf Podcast, a twice weekly golf betting and DraftKings show, as well as the betting preview with Rick on the RickRunGood YouTube page and 300 Yards to Unknown Podcast Feed. I am incredibly excited to provide an in-depth course breakdown for each weekly PGA Tour stop. I’ve been able to find my lane by looking at golf courses from a deeper lens, via architecture, agronomy, and so much more. Every single Monday, I will break down absolutely everything you need to know about the weekly PGA Tour venue before you make your bets and DraftKings lineups. So without further ago, let’s dive in! The Basics
- Course: Narashino Country Club
- Location: Greater Area of Tokyo, Japan
- Designer: Kinya Fujita
- Length: Par 70; 7,041 yards
- Hazards: Water comes into play on four holes
- Fairways: Zoysia Grass
- Rough: Zoysia Grass (2 inches)
- Greens: Bent-grass, running 10.5 on the stimp
The Zozo Championship is a professional golf tournament held in the Greater Area of Tokyo, Japan, co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour and PGA Tour. Tiger Woods won the inaugural event in 2019 for his 82nd PGA Tour victory. The tournament was moved to Sherwood Country Club in 2020 due to ongoing travel restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic, before returning to Japan in 2021, where Hideki Matsuyama eagled the final hole to win in his home country by five shots over Brendan Steele and Cameron Tringale. The field this year consists of 78 players, the top 60 available PGA Tour pros from the previous season’s FedEx Cup standings, the top-seven players on the Japan Golf Tour money list, and eight sponsors exemptions. Despite being held on the other side of the world from the United States, this tournament features the strongest field that we have seen all fall. Matsuyama will return to defend his title, and he will be joined by Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Young, Tyrrell Hatton, and Tommy Fleetwood, who will all be making their 2022-2023 PGA Tour season debut. Coming off strong performances in Las Vegas, Tom Kim, Cam Davis, Aaron Wise, Mito Pereira, Maverick McNealy, and Si Woo Kim will also be making the trip to Tokyo. The course itself, Narashino Country Club, presents a unique challenge. Known as one of the finest and well maintained courses in Japan, Narashino has delivered strong, mid-scoring tests both in 2019 and 2021. While we do not have shot-tracker from the previous two events held here, we can still gleam some information from looking at the player profiles of those who have found success, and traditional stats such as driving accuracy and greens in regulation. The fact that the two winners have been Tiger Woods and Hideki Matsuyama, the two best players in their respective fields, does not really tell us much, as when Tiger and Hideki play well, they will beat most fields on most courses. Still, let’s run through all of the information that I’ve gathered and see if there’s an edge to be found. Narashino features a somewhat uncommon set-up of five par threes and three par fives. All three of the par threes measure below 200 yards, and the seventh and 13th holes, which both measure below 170 yards, rank as the third and fourth easiest holes on the course. Another interesting angle is that the ten par fours at Narashino are either extremely short or punishingly long. There are five par fours shorter than 425 yards, five par fours longer than 485 yards, and zero in between. Unsurprisingly, the five shorter par fours all feature under a 14% bogey rate, and the five longer par fours feature over a 22% bogey rate. I will expand further during the approach section on how the blend of shorter and longer par fours affects how we should be looking at wedge play versus long iron play. The five longer par fours make up five of the six toughest holes on the course, all playing to over a 4.15 scoring average across two editions. The three par fives certainly present a respite, as the sixth and 18th play as the two easiest holes on the course, both featuring over a 40% birdie rate. Yet the 608 yard par five 14th barely plays under par, ranking as one of the more difficult non-major par fives on the PGA Tour. Rory McIlroy described the variety well, “I feel like its either you have a lot of short par fours, under 400 yards, but then there’s a lot of par fours that are between 490 and 510 yards. So you’ve got some real tough par fours. I think the golf course has a lot of variety. There’s quite a few wedges into par fours but then there’s a couple holes today that I hit a 4 iron and a 5 iron into them. I guess there’s a stretch on the back nine which is pretty tough as well. But it’s a great course. It’s in great condition. The greens are so pure, and it sort of reminds me a little bit of the course we play in Mexico, Chapultapec. Just sort of the tree-lined and doglegs and having to sort of cut off corners and stuff, but I like it.” Another really distinct aspect about Narashino, and many golf course in Japan, are the twin greens. Each hole has an A and B green, featuring different grasses, so the foot traffic is managed over the course of their seasons. If approaches land on the unused surfaces, there will be a free drop on the nearest point of relief. This is generally a wet time of year in Japan, so expect soft conditions. Still, this does not necessarily mean that the course turns into a dart throwing contest. Golf course maintenance is an art form in Japan and something that groundskeepers take great pride in. The greens were certainly receptive last year, but I would not expect them to be overly soggy even if there is rainfall during tournament week. I would describe the course as lush, and even in receptive conditions, there are still enough long par fours to protect winning scores from venturing past 20-under. Let’s dive into the stats. Stats
- Off the Tee
- Collin Morikawa described the challenge of Narashino off the tee, “It’s very different than what I’ve seen before, especially on the PGA Tour this last summer. It’s a lot more narrow, the fairways are a lot smaller as compared to last week.”
- There certainly has been a correlation over the last two editions of this tournament between finishing position and driving accuracy, but to be honest, it was not as significant as I was expecting. The top-10 players in driving accuracy last year finished 35th, 4th, 39th, 35th, 52nd, 18th, 39th, 44th, 28th, and 57th on the leaderboard, for an average finishing position of 35.1 in a field of 78. In 2021, the top-five players did rank above average in driving accuracy, but outside of Mackenzie Hughes, none of them were pounding fairways at an elite clip. 2019 told a similar story. Tiger Woods ranked seventh in driving accuracy, but Sungjae Im finished third ranking below average in driving accuracy. The top-10 players in the field in driving accuracy recorded an average finishing position of 32.6.
- Similar to Colonial, Narashino is a narrow, tree-lined, dogleg course that should provide multiple strategies off the tee. Jason Kokrak won at Colonial with an extremely aggressive approach, cutting the corner with driver often, whereas players such as Kevin Na have taken a more conservative approach of pounding fairways at an elite clip. Like most courses, the emphasis still falls squarely on the second shot. While Narashino does have some protruding trees and has been described as claustrophobic, I would not categorize the rough as overly penal. What’s most essential at this course is putting oneself in a reasonable position to hit the green in regulation, a stat far more highly correlated with success than driving accuracy. Hideki Matsuyama lapped the field in good drive percentage, which measures the number of fairways hit, plus the number of greens in regulation when the drive was not in the fairway, divided by the number of par four and par fives played. This provides another metric to use as a supporting variable when measuring off the tee performance. The best players in this field in good drive percentage are Corey Conners, Martin Laird, Mito Pereira, Xander Schauffele, Adam Long, Sungjae Im, Collin Morikawa, Brendan Steele, Aaron Rai, and Nate Lashley.
- I was also curious to look at what players raised their off the tee baseline on courses with narrow, difficult to hit fairways. Courses that present such a challenge off the tee can play out in multiple ways. The lazy assumption would be that narrow fairways help extremely accurate drivers of the ball, but that is not always the case, as we have seen before at courses such as Winged Foot. When the fairways become so narrow that even the most accurate players are missing them, the advantage then falls squarely with the longer players. It remains to be seen how Narashino truly fits into this picture. In full disclosure, we simply do not have enough data yet to make a true judgement call on whether or not the pendulum swings back in favor of the longer player. However, what I can say about Narashino is that it is one of the tighter courses that players will see all year. The best players in this field on courses with difficult to hit fairways have been Cameron Champ, Corey Conners, Sungjae Im, Brendan Steele, Emiliano Grillo, Hideki Matsuyama, Luke List, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Young, and Xander Schauffele.
- Approach
- Let’s start this section by harkening back to another Collin Morikawa quote, “Obviously it’s going to be pretty soft. Hitting these small greens and getting off the tee in the fairway will be the keys this week.” Measuring 5,500 square feet on average, the greens at Narashino are certainly on the smaller side, and both Tiger and Hideki absolutely lapped the field in greens in regulation percentage.
- At a macro level, I do believe that this is a week where we can hunker down on iron play. An argument could be made that iron play is the most important stat every single week, but it becomes even more critical on courses with a low greens in regulation percentage like Narashino. My initial thought process is that Narashino should be broken down similar to TPC Potomac, where because of the narrow fairways, the first shot is absolutely crucial. The issue is that Narashino is not as penal, and we have seen players find success here without elite driving accuracy. As previously alluded to, Narashino is far more like Colonial than it is TPC Potomac. Yes, it has very narrow fairways, but missing them is far from a death sentence, and multiple strategic approaches off the tee can yield success. Narashino then turns into a second shot course, as bombers and fairway finders are both able to play their game off the tee. The second shot is where the true separation occurs.
- In the absence of shot-tracker, we do not have proximity buckets this week. Since I believe that the second shot is so important at Narashino, I wanted to narrow in on what specific types of iron players I should be targeting. I decided to break down the holes by expected proximity distances based on average carry distance (softer conditions) using hole by hole fly-overs and doing my best to determine what strategy players will take off the tee. I could certainly be off in these projections, but I feel strongly that I am at least in the right ball-park with these:
- 75-100 yards: 11%
- 100-125 yards: 17%
- 125-150 yards: 11%
- 150-175 yards: 11%
- 175-200 yards: 33%
- 200 yards plus: 17%
- There are two par threes over 175 yards, five par fours over 485 yards, and at least two reachable par fives. On every single one of those holes, the approach shot will be greater than 175 yards, which suddenly makes up 50% of the course. Wedge play will certainly be important as well, but due to the course makeup, it’s undeniable that long iron play is what we really want to focus on. It’s not often that we see long iron play as a crucial stat on a course measuring under 7,100 yards, but that simply illustrates the point I always make about it not being enough to simply look at the length of the course and label it as short or long.
- The best long-term players in this field from 175 yards plus are Viktor Hovland, Kurt Kitayama, Tom Hoge, Aaron Wise, Cameron Champ, Xander Schauffele, Cameron Davis, Collin Morikawa, Tyler Duncan, and Luke List.
- The best long-term short iron players in this field are Tom Hoge, Chez Reavie, Cameron Davis, Scott Stallings, Mito Pereira, Xander Schauffele, Nate Lashley, Peter Malnati, Keegan Bradley, and Tommy Fleetwood.
- Around the Green
- While it’s difficult to gage how important anything is at this course given our limited data, I can safely assume that this is not a week where we should completely ignore short game. The greens in regulation percentage is on the lower side, and this course is heavily bunkered. Complex bunkering is a staple of Japanese architecture, and while there was not a strong correlation between sand save percentage and finishing position, there rarely ever is! This is also the case at heavily bunkered courses such as Augusta National and Muirfield Village. Just by spending time viewing flyovers of the course and watching this tournament from last year, I would still ascertain that bunker play is fairly important this week. The best bunker players in this field are Lucas Herbert, Tommy Fleetwood, Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark, Kevin Streelman, Andrew Putnam, Tyrrell Hatton, Tom Hoge, K.H. Lee, and Kurt Kitayama.
- Ultimately, I would not disregard around the green play this week. It’s not Torrey Pines, Augusta National, Bay Hill, or Muirfield Village, where scrambling turns into one of the more crucial stats, but I am still above my median short game weight.
- Putting
- It’s similarly hard to define the challenge of putting at a course with such little data, but I would certainly ascertain that these greens do feature some undulation and character. Rolling at 10.5 on the stimp, they are by no means fast, which is not necessarily a sign that they aren’t difficult. Greens with a lot of undulation are often on the slower side in an effort to access more pin-able locations.
- I should also say that this is not a putting contest. The greens in regulation percentage is too low, and with such a large plurality of tough par fours, Narashino does a good job of separating from tee to green. Still, I have about a standard weight on Bent-grass putting this week. This tournament has been a mid-scoring test in its first two editions, playing harder last year under firmer conditions. I want to monitor the rainfall situation over the course of the week, but I would still suggest that Bent-grass putting will be a fairly important metric this week. The best long-term Bent-grass putters in this field are Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Beau Hossler, Mackenzie Hughes, Patrick Rodgers, Maverick McNealy, Andrew Putnam, Xander Schauffele, Lucas Herbert, Mark Hubbard, and Scott Stallings.
- Scoring Stats
- To be honest, I don’t know if there’s a reason to look at any scoring stats this week. The problem is two-fold. Firstly, there’s extremely limited data on this course. Secondly, even if we did have data on Narashino, my read would be that this is a very standard, run of the mill, mid-scoring test. I usually use this section to discuss statistics such as “Strokes Gained in Easy Scoring Conditions,” “Birdies or Better Gained,” “Opportunities Gained,” “Par-five scoring,” “Strokes Gained in Difficult Scoring Conditions,” “Scrambling,” “Bogey Avoidance,” etc. Narashino is too difficult for us to look at easy scoring statistics, and too easy for us to look at difficult scoring statistics. I considered par five scoring as an option here, but I typically reserve that for courses with four par fives. Narashino only has three, and one of them is a difficult, three shot hole. As a result, I will be foregoing this entire category entirely.
- Comp Courses/Course History
- Let’s start with Narashino. This is really all we’ve got right? There’s not enough data to determine whether course history is all that predictive here, but I do believe there’s something to be said for those who have had made the trip to Japan and experienced success. These players are flying halfway across the world! While I think it’s a bit silly to suggest that those who have not played golf in Japan before will struggle with jet-lag, it’s fair to presume that those who have had proven success overseas may deserve a bump. The best players in this field across two editions of the Zozo have been Hideki Matsuyama, Brendan Steele, Sungjae Im, Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes, Sebastian Munoz, Matt Wallace, Keegan Bradley, Tommy Fleetwood, and Collin Morikawa.
- Rory compared this course to Chapultapec, former host of the WGC Mexico Open, and I can certainly get down with that. The agronomy is a bit different, but both courses feature tree-lined mid scoring tests with small greens. Both the WGC Mexico and the Zozo are limited field events with top heavy fields, occur in the fall or winter, and are held in a different continent. In terms of the strategy and nuances of each course, I can certainly see what Rory was getting at as well. Both courses allow for options off the tee, and both shorter and longer players have experienced success. Short game is also critical at both courses, and even the unique distribution of short iron and long iron shots is apparent at both tracks. The best players in this field at Chapultapec have been Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Hideki Matsuyama, Xander Schauffele, Sebastian Munoz, Aaron Wise, Rickie Fowler, Jhonattan Vegas, Mackenzie Hughes, and Scott Piercy.
- I’ve already alluded to my love Colonial as a comp, and the reasoning is quite simple. It just checks the most boxes from an agronomy, strategy, and scoring standpoint. Colonial is the only other course on the PGA Tour that features moderate scoring conditions, heavily doglegged holes, tree lined fairways, the potential threat of swirling winds, and Bent-grass greens. The best players in this field at Colonial have been Corey Conners, Collin Morikawa, Danny Lee, Davis Riley, Viktor Hovland, Andrew Putnam, Emiliano Grillo, Mito Pereira, Tyrrell Hatton, and Sungjae Im.
Model
- Off the Tee (18%)
- Strokes Gained Off the Tee on Difficult to Hit Fairways (8%)
- Good Drive Percentage (10%)
- Approach (38%)
- Strokes Gained Approach (20%)
- Proximity 100-125 yards (4%)
- Proximity 175-200 yards (7%)
- Proximity 200 yards plus (7%)
- Around the Green (12%)
- Strokes Gained Around the Green (7%)
- Sand Saves (5%)
- Putting (16%)
- Bent-grass Putting (16%)
- Scoring Stats (0%)
- Comp Courses/Course History
- Narashino (8%)
- Chapultapec (4%)
- Colonial (4%)
Top 20
- Xander Schauffele
- Sungjae Im
- Corey Conners
- Sebastian Munoz
- Cameron Davis
- Viktor Hovland
- Mito Pereira
- Tom Hoge
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Collin Morikawa
- Tommy Fleetwood
- Aaron Wise
- Scott Stallings
- Mark Hubbard
- Davis Riley
- Tom Kim
- Emiliano Grillo
- Keegan Bradley
- Brendan Steele
- Adam Svensson
