Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2024 ZOZO Championship

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2024 ZOZO Championship

ZOZO Championship Fantasy Preview

Form is temporary, class is permanent.

J.T. Poston hadn’t swung a golf club in anger on the PGA TOUR since August, when the main portion of his season came to an end with three missed cuts in five starts. He hadn’t recorded a top-ten finish since April, either.

But the ‘Postman’ delivered at the Shriners Children’s Open, alright, and credited another kind of delivery with his incredible uptick in performance level.

Poston became a father in March, but it was only during that time away from the sport in the summer that he really got to spend quality time with his daughter – such are the demands of the PGA TOUR.

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So he cashed in a kind of longer-term nappy factor at the Shriners, where the combination of ranking fourth for SG: Tee-to-Green and eighth for SG: Putting was always likely to take some stopping.

And nobody could stop Poston, who slotted home a four-foot putt on the 72nd hole to beat Doug Ghim by a single stroke and land the third PGA TOUR title of his career. It also earned him spots in The Masters and PGA Championship fields of 2025, so a good week was had, it’s fair to say.

He will now have the luxury of another week at home with his family; Poston isn’t amongst the field heading to Japan for the ZOZO Championship.

Last Week’s Fantasy Results

Last week’s shining star was Matti Schmid from our Tuesday Sleeper Report. 

The German finished T3 with 23 birdies on the week and an impressive display of fantasy points!

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ZOZO Championship Field

A number of players with Japanese connections will be teeing it up at the Narashino Country Club, including Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, and defending champion Collin Morikawa.

Leading the Japanese contingent will be Hideki Matsuyama, and he will be joined by a number of his compatriots: PGA TOUR regular Ryo Hisatsune joined by Kensei Hirata and Ryo Ishikawa, who both finished inside the top-ten on the leaderboard here 12 months ago.

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A number of players that finished inside the top-50 of the FedEx Cup standings, including Max Homa, Sahith Theegala, Sungjae Im, and Justin Thomas, will also be making the trip to Japan.

This Week’s Course Preview

If you squint when watching the coverage, you’d think that the Accordia Golf Complex at Narashino Country Club was a classic tree-lined track in America, like Augusta National or TPC Sawgrass.

The layout certainly wears its Western influences on its sleeve, with dense tree-lines, strategically-placed water hazards, plenty of sand, and some significant undulations.

It’s fairly tight and claustrophobic too, with some tight lines off the tee, plus a number of doglegging holes that only help to enhance the difficulty of the challenge off the tee.

At a shade over 7,000 yards for its Par 70, Accordia Golf features five Par 3s and three Par 5s amongst its unique routing. Four of the Par 3s are 180 yards or shorter, and yet none of the Par 4s are drivable, and all three Par 5s are at least 560 yards.

The Bentgrass greens are on the slick side too, and some thin fairways, tight-angled doglegs, and approach shots over water perhaps explain this extraordinary statistic: of the eleven players that finished T10 or better in 2023, eight of them made at least one double-bogey or worse.

Accordia Golf isn’t too tough – nine of its holes averaged under par last year, with the three Par 5s considerably so, but it’s also worth noting that Morikawa was the only player to finish double-digits under par; so the players should expect a decent examination of their tee-to-green game.

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Weather Forecast for Chiba, Japan

A warm and pleasant week appears to be in store for the ZOZO Championship.

Thursday looks, according to the early forecast at least, set to be warm (around 71 degrees) and likely rain free, with wind speeds of 8mph.

Friday is shaping up to be more of the same, although stronger gusts of wind may play their part in proceedings, while less cloud cover will result in more sunshine and warmer temperatures on Saturday.

Championship Sunday could well be the best day of the week, with the mercury hitting 75 degrees and the wind dropping to a mere whisper.

CHIBA WEATHER

Last Year’s Results from the ZOZO Championship

Collin Morikawa took the scenic route to victory at the 2023 ZOZO Championship.

He opened his tournament with a round of 64 to lead after the first round, but a pretty catastrophic 73 on Friday saw him fall four shots behind the leader at the halfway stage, Beau Hossler.

A third round of 66 got Morikawa very much back in the conversation, with the two-time major champion just two shots adrift of the 54-hole leader, Justin Suh.

Suh would retreat down the leaderboard on Sunday – he failed to make a single birdie in his opening 13 holes, with five bogeys sending him cascading down the standings, while the well-placed Hossler and Eric Cole could only post rounds of level par.

So step forward Morikawa, who took Accordia Golf to the cleaners with a bogey-free round of 63. Such was his dominance that the American would ultimately beat the field by six strokes.

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Where to Play Fantasy Golf for this Week’s ZOZO Championship

Although small-field events aren’t ideal for DFS gaming, we do enjoy these layouts where classical ball-strikers tend to come to the fore.

In that spirit, here’s two options you can explore at different price points:

• PGA $100k Drive the Green: This $5 contest features multiple entry, if you want to tweak your central lineup, and the lure of a top prize of $25k – with many other prizes to be won.

• PGA $300k Sand Trap: If you’re operating with a larger bankroll, this $25 contest brings with the requisite rewards; that is, a stack of prizes of $100 or more, with a jackpot of $100k for the winner!

This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the ZOZO Championship

With the ShotLink tech left behind, we only have the most basic of statistical measures with which to build a profile of Accordia Golf.

And even then we’re left somewhat in the dark: some holes are very much less-than-driver off the tee, whereas others allow the players to free their arms. Making the right choices on the teebox will be vital.

Of the eleven players that finished T10 or better in 2023, as many as four found fewer than 50% of fairways in regulation, although the GIR count was somewhere up around the 65% mark, on average.

Therefore, we can conclude that bogeys can be avoided from the rough, although it will still take quality approach play – and the ability to scramble and get up-and-down around the greens – to compile a winning score.

Long irons will also be the order of the day into the five Par 3s, where danger lurks for those errant, and that’s also the case for the four hardest holes on the real estate: Par 4s at four, ninth, twelve, and seventeen, where approaches in that 150-200 yard bracket may be required.

As far as correlating courses are concerned, there’s not an overwhelming case for an individual track. However, short and tight Par 70s with doglegging holes – think Colonial (Charles Schwab Challenge) and TPC River Highlands (Travelers Championship) – are a good place to start, as are ‘classic’ layouts like Augusta (The Masters), TPC Sawgrass (The PLAYERS), and Riviera (Genesis Invitational).

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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the ZOZO Championship   

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the ZOZO Championship  

Top Tier Pick # 1

Xander Schauffele (Odds: 4/1, FPPG: 95.4, Salary: $11,500)

In four trips to Narashino, Xander Schauffele hasn’t looked like winning – T9 his best finish. However, in 2024, he heads to Japan as a different animal entirely.

His trophy cabinet has expanded this year to include the PGA Championship as well as a Green Jacket courtesy of The Masters; they sit nicely alongside the Olympic Gold Medal he won in Japan back in 2021.

That was a telling moment for Schauffele, who has a familial connection to Japan on his mother’s side. His emotion at winning gold at those Tokyo Olympics was clear for all to see.

At Narashino Country Club, Schauffele should be in his element at a tight, tree-lined layout that apes the likes of Augusta and another happy hunting ground of his, East Lake GC.

Only Scottie Scheffler has been more effective than Schauffele from tee-to-green this season; given that this is a tournament that Xander would dearly love to win, we have to consider him the favorite to do exactly that.

Key Stats:

• Scoring Average (Adjusted) – 2nd
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 2nd
• SG: Putting – 10th

Top Tier Pick #2

Sungjae Im (Odds: 14/1, FPPG: 69.3, Salary: $9,800)

Having enjoyed such a stellar second half of the year, Sungjae Im wouldn’t have wanted the main part of the 2024 season to end.

Between May and August, Im recorded six top-10 finishes in PGA TOUR events, as well as T11 and T12 efforts too. The Korean would ultimately finish seventh at the TOUR Championship, closing out with a round of 64 at East Lake.

His tee-to-green play has been exemplary, and he’s gained strokes putting on the field in each of his last eight PGA TOUR outings. Aside from the obvious few, Im is playing as well as anybody in world golf right now.

Although he didn’t fire at the Presidents Cup, that sort of environment isn’t too everybody’s liking, so Im should enjoy being back in more traditional surroundings. And last year, he shook off a layoff of seven weeks to finish T2 at the Genesis Championship in Korea, so we can expect the world number 22 to fire despite his rest since the TOUR Championship.

Key Stats:

• Putts Per Round – 17th
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 29th
• Proximity to Hole – 33rd

Mid-Tier Pick #1

Andrew Putnam (Odds: 60/1, FPPG: 63.3, Salary: $7,900)

A closing round of -7 at TPC Summerlin will see Andrew Putnam head to Japan with a spring in his step.

He finished T2 in the ZOZO Championship of 2022, recording a round of 62 – with all four of his rounds under par – as he went down by a solitary shot to Keegan Bradley.

Given his ability to keep the ball in play off the tee, his reliable short game, and his ability to keep bogeys off the card, Putnam can grind out a competitive score at Narashino – his form at the likes of Bay Hill and TPC Southwind also suggestive that these tougher challenges are where his best work is done.

Key Stats:

• Bogey Avoidance – 10th
• Driving Accuracy – 28th
• Greens in Regulation – 39th

Mid-Tier Pick #2

Rickie Fowler (Odds: 70/1, FPPG: 56.5, Salary: $7,600)

Golf fans with long memories may recall the 2022 ZOZO Championship, where Rickie Fowler led with a round to play.

He did little wrong on that Sunday, but just couldn’t quite convert – Fowler was left distraught that he couldn’t win in the Japanese homeland of his grandfather. So much does he have for the country, Rickie even has tattoos inked in Japanese about his person.

He’s been well off form in recent months, but at the Shriners produced a ball-striking display of such excellence that he’s now very much on the radar again – and why not, given Fowler’s love of classical tree-lined layouts.

A winner at TPC Sawgrass, and a runner-up at Augusta, Rickie certainly enjoys this kind of challenge.

Key Stats:

• Par 3 Scoring Average – 67th 
• Putts Per Round – 69th
• Approaches from 150-175 yards – 75th

Low-Tier Pick

Ryo Hisatsune (Odds: 150/1, FPPG: 57.0, Salary: $7,300)

Although his rookie year on the PGA TOUR hasn’t always gone to plan, Ryo Hisatsune has shown enough to suggest he is a star in the making.

The Japanese ace finished T3 at the Wyndham Championship – an event that could hold some similarities with the ZOZO in terms of host course, as well as T18 at the PGA Championship as a nod to his talent.

Hisatsune ranks 25th on TOUR this season for approach shots in the 175-200 yard bracket, and that’s a skillset that can come in very handy at Narashino – perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that he has T7 and T12 finishes to his name in this event.

Key Stats:

• Greens in Regulation – 21st
• Bogey Avoidance – 52nd
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 59th

Sleeper Pick for the ZOZO Championship

Kensei Hirata (Odds: 175/1, FPPG: 46.8, Salary: $7,000)

One of the most exciting prospects in Japanese golf right now is Kensei Hirata.

The 23-year-old has, remarkably, won three times within the past two months – twice on the Japan Golf Tour, and another at the Shinhan Donghae Open, which is a co-sanctioned event across each of the Asian tours.

All told, Hirata has won six times since the start of 2023, which is perhaps proof that he’s destined for bigger and better things.

That was confirmed in his efforts in the ZOZO Championship 12 months ago, where he finished T6; ahead of many seasoned PGA TOUR regulars.

Key Stats:

• N/A

Alternative Sleeper Pick for the ZOZO Championship

Shugo Imahira (Odds: 150/1, FPPG: 82.0, Salary: $6,900)

A prolific champion on home soil, so consistent has Shugo Imahira been over the years that he was once ranked as high as 30 in the OWGR.

Still only 32 years old, Imahira has won ten times on the Japan Golf Tour – the most recent of which came at the Japan Open Golf Championship just a fortnight ago.

With four finishes of T6 or better in his last five starts, Imahira is flying – and a best of T18 in the ZOZO Championship at Narashino offers a glimpse of his talent against world-class opposition.

Key Stats:

• N/A

This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup

Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only.  Be sure to mix-and-match to best fit individual contests.

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Fantasy Golf Predictions – This Season 

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