2023 Course Breakdown: Accordia Golf Narashino
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 PGA Tour heads to Japan this week for the Zozo Championship, a professional golf tournament held in the greater area of Tokyo. The event is co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and Japan Golf Tour. Tiger Woods won the inaugural event for his 82nd PGA Tour victory. The tournament was moved to Sherwood Country Club in 2020 due to the ongoing travel restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic before returning to Japan in 2021. Two years, ago Hideki Matsuyama eagled the final hole to win in his home country by five strokes over Brendan Steele and Cameron Tringale. The following year, Keegan Bradley held off a hard-charging Rickie Fowler by one stroke. The field consists of 78 players: the top 60 available PGA Tour pros from the previous FedEx Cup standings, the top seven players on the Japan Golf Tour money list, and eight sponsor exemptions.
As far as the actual course goes, Accordia Golf Narashino was designed by Japanese designer Kinya Fujita in 1976, and it features three sets of 18 holes, which make up a composite tournament course. Narashino is an old school, tree-lined course with small greens where players will be forced to move the ball in both directions off the tee. At least one third of the holes dogleg fairly sharply. Another interesting angle to consider with Narashino is that the 10 par fours are either extremely short or punishingly long. None of the two-shooters measure between 426 and 485 yards. There are actually five par fours that measure shorter than 425 yards, and five holes measure over 485 yards.
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 this blend of shorter and longer par fours affects how we should look at short-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 three editions.
The three par fives certainly provide 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 5 14th barely plays under par and ranks as one of the more difficult non-major par fives on the PGA Tour. Rory McIlroy described the variety well, “I feel like it’s 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 four iron and five 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 conditions, the greens are so pure, and it sort of reminds me a little bit of the course we play in Mexico, Chapultepec. Just sort of the tree-lined doglegs and having to sort of cut off corners and stuff, but I like it.”
Another unique aspect of Narashino is that it features twin greens. Each hole has an “A” and a “B” green, featuring different grasses so that foot traffic is managed over the course of their seasons. If approaches land on the used surfaces, there will be a free drop to the nearest point of relief. This is also generally a wet time of year in Japan, so we can expect softer conditions. Yet 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 their 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 the event. Greenskeepers do such a fantastic job keeping this course playable and there are enough long par fours to protect winning scores from venturing past 20-under par.
Keegan Bradley described the challenge as similar to the Northeastern Bent-grass courses that he grew up on, “Well, it’s just a really great course. Reminds me of the courses I grew up on where I was born, tree-lined holes, got to hit good shots into little greens, so great, I love it out here. Everything felt pretty good. I drove the ball nice. I feel like my game is in good shape.”
Collin Morikawa shared another insightful insight that immediately made me think of Harding Park. “Yeah, you know, we’re playing pretty much at sea level, so cool kind of San Francisco Bay Area weather, but with this wind, when it’s downwind you can be hitting a couple clubs less and when you’re playing into the wind it can be a couple to three clubs more, so it’s all about flighting your ball.” Tommy Fleetwood added, “It’s just a really good test of golf. You have to hit the fairways. Ball is pretty much uncontrollable out of the rough, which is how it should be. Then the greens, the greens are really fast with a lot of slope. I think they had some great pin positions, you can still mess it up at any time. So it’s great, it’s a great challenge.”
Ultimately, Narashino requires a balanced attack with a strong emphasis on long-iron play. Tournament experience is always helpful playing in such a different and distinctive environment, but in terms of the golf course, Narashino is not all that dissimilar from many of the narrow, tree-lined Bent-grass courses we have grown accustomed to seeing on the PGA Tour. Let’s dive into the stats.
Stats
- Off the Tee
- Despite limited data, we can still understand the role of the first shot on this golf course. Collin Morikawa stated, “It’s very different from 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.”
- This course features some of the more narrow fairways on Tour, with a driving accuracy percentage of 56.8%, comfortably below Tour average, and because of often wet conditions, driving distance (287.5) ranks below Tour average as well.
- Last year, Keegan Bradley won via a balanced attack off the tee, ranking above average, but not inside the top 15 in driving distance (18th) and driving accuracy (23rd). Yet he ranked 3rd in greens-in-regulation percentage, which speaks to the second-shot nature of this golf course. In 2019, Tiger was incredibly accurate off the tee, while sacrificing length and strategically plodding his way around, ranking 7th in driving accuracy and 3rd in greens in regulation.
- Last year, there appeared to be a very negligible correlation between driving accuracy and success, as while the top four players on the leaderboard did gain to the field in driving accuracy percentage, 15 of the top 25 lost to the field in that same category. It did appear that there was a stronger correlation in the distance category last year. 16 out of the top 25 gained to the field in driving distance.
- The top 10 players in driving distance last year recorded an average finishing position of 23.9, whereas the top 10 players in driving accuracy last year recorded an average finishing position of 32.4, and the top four finishers in driving accuracy finished outside the top 35 in a 78-man field. This leads me to believe there is very little correlation between either driving distance/driving accuracy. Narashino is far more of a second-shot golf course.
- The prior year told a similar story. The top 10 players in driving accuracy in 2021 finished 35th, 4th, 39th, 52nd, 18th, 39th, 44th, 28th, and 57th on the leaderboard, for an average finishing position of 35.1 in a field of 78. The top five players in this field did rank above average in driving accuracy percentage, but outside of Mackenzie Hughes, none of them were pounding fairways at an elite clip. Similar deal in 2019, as Tiger Woods ranked 7th in driving accuracy, but Sungjae Im finished third ranking below average in driving accuracy. The top-10 players in driving accuracy in 2019 recorded an average finishing position of 32.6.
- Narashino actually reminds me a lot of Colonial off the tee. Both feature narrow tree-lined, dog-leg fairways and encourage 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, pounding fairways at an elite clip. Like most courses, the emphasis on Narashino falls mainly on the second shot, and while this course does have some protruding trees and could be described as claustrophobic, I would not categorize the rough as overly penal.
- What’s most essential at Narashino is putting oneself in a reasonable position to hit the green in regulation, which can be measured by good drive percentage, a stat far more highly correlated with success here than driving accuracy. Keegan Bradley and Hideki Matsuyama both finished in the top five last year 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 on the tee shot 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 Collin Morikawa, Matthew NeSmith, Si Woo Kim, Andrew Putnam, Aaron Rai, Hayden Buckley, Doug Ghim, Xander Schauffele, Emiliano Grillo, and Hideki Matsuyama.
- The lazy assumption is 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. We simply do not have enough data to make a true judgement call on whether the pendulum swings back in favor of the longer player. What I do know about Narashino is that it is one of the tighter courses that players will see face all season. Yet from all the evidence we have gathered, I would not put a tremendous amount of stock into how a player performs off the tee. Narashino is a true second-shot golf course.
- Approach
- I’ve alluded to the second-shot nature of this golf course, as greens in regulation remains incredibly highly correlated with success, especially in comparison to driving distance and driving accuracy,
- In the absence of shot-tracker, I decided to break down the holes by expected proximity distances based on average driving distance at this golf course and strategy off the tee using hole-by-hole flyovers. I could certainly be a little off on these projections, but I feel strongly that I am on the right track here:
- Inside 100 yards: 11%
- 100-125 yards: 11%
- 125-150 yards: 11%
- 150-175 yards: 6%
- 175-200 yards: 28%
- 200 yards plus: 28%
- The three par threes over 175 yards, coupled with the five longer par fours and at least two reachable par fives, suddenly make up for 50% of the course. Wedge play will certainly be important this week as well, but due to the makeup of the course, it is undeniable that 175 yards-plus is the range we 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 this simply illustrates the fact that we should not simply look at the length of a course on paper and pigeon-hole it as a “short” or “long” course. The best long-term players from 175 yards-plus in this field have been Chez Reavie, Eric Cole, Collin Morikawa, Austin Eckroat, Si Woo Kim, Hideki Matsuyama, Nate Lashley, Tony Finau, Tom Hoge, and M.J. Daffue.
- Around the Green
- While it’s difficult to gauge the importance of certain skill-sets given our limited data, I can safely assume that this is not a week where we should ignore short game entirely. While the greens-in-regulation percentage here is on the moderate end, this course is heavily bunkered with deceiving run-off areas. Complex bunkering is a staple of Japanese architecture, and 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 where players will talk openly about the importance of sand play. Based on course flyovers and watching this tournament from last year, I would still ascertain that bunker play is a fairly important tool to have in one’s arsenal this week. The best bunker players in this field over the past year have been Dylan Wu, Danny Willett, Rickie Fowler, Maverick McNealy, Peter Malnati, Min Woo Lee, Adam Scott, Harry Hall, Ben Griffin, and Si Woo Kim.
- Putting
- It’s similarly hard to define the challenge of putting on a course we have such little data on, but I would certainly ascertain that these greens do feature some undulation and character. Rolling at a 10.5 on the stimp, Narashino’s putting surfaces are by no means fast, but that does not mean they are not difficult. Greens with a lot of undulation often run slower in an effort to access more pin-able locations.
- I should also say that there is enough tee-to-green challenge where I would not define this tournament as a putting contest. The greens-in-regulation percentage is moderate, and there is such a large plurality of longer par fours. I have settled on a standard Bent-grass putting weight this week. This event has been a mid-scoring test in its first three editions. I will still 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 Bent-grass putters in this field over the past two years have been Keegan Bradley, Justin Lower, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Maverick McNealy, Eric Cole, Beau Hossler, Justin Suh, Patrick Rodgers, Sahith Theegala, and Adam Svensson.
- Scoring Stats
- To be honest, I don’t know if there’s a strong 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, mid-scoring test that follows right in the center of the spectrum of easy and difficult scoring conditions. I usually use this section to discuss statistics such as “Strokes Gained: Easy/Difficult Scoring Conditions,” “Birdies or Better Gained,” “Opportunities Gained,” “Par-Five Scoring,” “Scrambling,” etc. Narashino is too difficult for us to look at easy scoring conditions, birdies or better gained, and too easy for us to look at difficult scoring conditions or scrambling. With only three par fives, there has not been a strong correlation with par-five scoring, and there are not enough scoring chances for us to look at opportunities gained. As a result, I will be foregoing this category entirely.
- Comp Courses/Course History
- Let’s start with Narashino, which actually skews on the lower end in terms of the predictive nature of its course history. Still, there is something to be said for those who have made the trip to Japan before and been able to navigate the time difference. While it’s a bit silly to suggest that those who have not golfed before 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 over the first three editions of the Zozo have been Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley, Sungjae Im, Sahith Theegala, Hayden Buckley, Mackenzie Hughes, Tom Hoge, Xander Schauffele, Byeong-Hun An, and Rickie Fowler.
- Rory has previously compared this course to Chapultepec, the former host of the WGC Mexico Open, and I can certainly understand his thinking there. The agronomy is a bit different, but both courses are narrow, tree-lined, mid-scoring affairs with small greens. Both the WGC Mexico and the Zozo are also limited field events with top-heavy fields that occur in the fall or winter and are held in a different continent. The best players in this field at Chapultepec have been Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley, Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, Tony Finau, Mackenzie Hughes, Sungjae Im, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, and Adam Scott.
- I’ve already alluded to my love for Colonial as a comp, and the reasoning is quite simple. It simply 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 Emiliano Grillo, Collin Morikawa, Harry Hall, Tony Finau, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Andrew Putnam, Hideki Matsuyama, Chad Ramey, Davis Riley, and Justin Suh.
- The final course that bears resemblance to Narashino is Harding Park, host of the 2020 PGA Championship. Harding Park features narrow, tree-lined fairways, swirling winds, cooler temperatures, and mid-scoring conditions. The players in this field who made the cut at the 2020 PGA Championship were Collin Morikawa, Tony Finau, Joel Dahmen, Cameron Champ, Hideki Matsuyama, Xander Schauffele, Alex Noren, Byeong-Hun An, Adam Scott, Nate Lashley, Si Woo Kim, and Keith Mitchell.
Model
- Off the Tee (16%)
- Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (8%)
- Good Drive Percentage (8%)
- Approach (36%)
- Strokes Gained: Approach (20%)
- Proximity 175-200 yards (8%)
- Proximity 200 yards-plus (8%)
- Around the Green (16%)
- Strokes Gained: Around the Green (8%)
- Sand Saves (8%)
- Putting (16%)
- Strokes Gained Putting: Bent-grass (16%)
- Scoring Stats (0%)
- Comp Courses/Course History (16%)
- Narashino (7%)
- Chapultepec (3%)
- Colonial (3%)
- TPC Harding Park (3%)
Top 20
- Xander Schauffele
- Collin Morikawa
- Rickie Fowler
- Eric Cole
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Si Woo Kim
- Keegan Bradley
- Mark Hubbard
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout
- Tony Finau
- Nate Lashley
- J.J. Spaun
- Adam Schenk
- Austin Eckroat
- Sungjae Im
- Sahith Theegala
- Andrew Putnam
- Cameron Davis
- Chez Reavie
- Vincent Norrman
