Power Rankings: ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP

October 10, 2022   events, National Golf, Opinion

By: PGA Tour

Typically, a career year for any professional athlete isn’t identifiable until there’s agreement that the glory days have passed. For the best talent at any time, evidence suggesting future greater achievement is filed regularly, so it’s a fool’s errand to argue that a career year already has been cemented. Yet, there are exceptions.

In professional golf, winning a major constitutes candidacy for a career year, but Hideki Matsuyama is only 30 years old, so classifying his career year as 2021 when he became Japan’s first male major champion at the Masters, could be rushing to judgment despite the historic accomplishment. However, the year also included his participation in the Olympics in his native Japan where he was edged for a medal, and it ended with victory at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, also in his homeland. It was a lot, and it was great.

The moral of the matter is that it would be unfair to expect any golfer to convert on a combination of those successes when the stars align like that. So, while it may prove not to be Matsuyama’s career year in the context of an overall body of work, it likely will be the most special year of his career personally, so it demands this moment to appreciate it because he defends the last of those highlights at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Chiba this week.

POWER RANKINGS: ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP

RANK PLAYER COMMENT
15 Viktor Hovland Viktor Hovland
After finishing T15 at the TOUR Championship, the stripe show returned to his native Europe for two starts, the more impressive of which a T5 at the BMW PGA Championship.
14 Cameron Young Cameron Young
Season debut for the standout of the 2021-22 PGA TOUR rookie class. En route to seven podiums, he led in distance of all drives and he was third in converting GIR into par breakers.
13 Maverick McNealy Maverick McNealy
Closed out his tournament debut last year with a 65 for a T25. Regained form last week with a T10 at TPC Summerlin where he paced the field in numerous putting categories.
12 Tommy Fleetwood Tommy Fleetwood
First PGA TOUR action since recording T4s at the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship. The Englishman has finished T22 (2019) and T7 (2021) at Narashino.
11 Tom Hoge Tom Hoge
The 33-year-old has reignited in recent weeks. After placing 10th in the FedExCup, he’s hung up a T12 (Fortinet) and a T4 (Shriners). Debuted at Narashino with a 17th-place finish last year.
10 Mito Pereira Mito Pereira
Effectively turned the page after a sour Presidents Cup with a T4 at TPC Summerlin where he put on a clinic with his irons. It’s the kind of dialed-in form that covers for inconsistency.
9 Sepp Straka Sepp Straka
When he recorded a T66 in his tournament debut last year, he slotted 183rd in the Official World Golf Ranking. Today, he’s 26th with a pair of playoff losses in his last four starts.
8 Collin Morikawa Collin Morikawa
Already his third start at Narashino. He debuted with T22 in 2019 and added a T7 last year. Ranked second in par-5 scoring here last year. Rested since Presidents Cup victory (2-1-0).
7 Mackenzie Hughes Mackenzie Hughes

Rested after emerging from the playoff to win the Sanderson Farms two weeks ago. Placed T4 here last year with a balanced attack and a vintage performance on the greens.
6 Tyrrell Hatton Tyrrell Hatton
Arrives having connected top 10s on the DP World Tour. His brilliant short game plays up on courses with lower GIR percentages like Narashino where he’s making his debut.
5 Keegan Bradley Keegan Bradley
The long-hitting ball-striker is among the course co-record-holders with a 63 en route to a T13 in 2019. Added a T7 last year. Opened this season with a T5 at the Sanderson Farms.
4 Xander Schauffele Xander Schauffele
Thrice a winner in last six months and fresh off finishing the Playoffs T3-4th and contributing a 3-1-0 record at the Presidents Cup. The bonus is that this trip is a family reunion.
3 Hideki Matsuyama Hideki Matsuyama
The defending champion leads an intriguing Japanese contingent. In two editions of the tournament in his native Japan, the only golfer who’s beaten him is Tiger Woods in 2019.
2 Tom Kim Tom Kim
He’s pretty good, huh? The success despite his youth is inspiring, especially given his humility for the situation. It’s absurd to think that a 20-year-old is slump-proof, but there’s NO proof!
1 Sungjae Im Sungjae Im
He’s been one of the hottest performers on the planet since late July, but he now has gone a year since his last victory. Also opened the ZOZO with an end-loaded T3 in 2019.

Corey Conners, Cam Davis and Shriners co-runner-up Matthew NeSmith will be among the notables reviewed in Draws and Fades.

The ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP opens a fortnight reserved for 78-man invitationals. THE CJ CUP in South Carolina is on deck. Both are rewards to the top 60 in the previous season’s FedExCup standings and neither has a cut. (Each field reserves space for the top 60 eligible among those who qualified for the Playoffs.)

The event’s location in Japan is a giveaway that the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP is conducted in conjunction with the Japan Golf Tour, although it’s not an official event for the latter. Fifteen JGTO members are in the field, the majority of whom can be found at the top of their money list. Another is Keita Nakajima, who is making just his third start as a professional after an extended stretch atop the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

Narashino is a par 70 with five par 3s and three par 5s. The nines are respective pars of 34 and 36. After debuting in 2019 with a scoring average of about one-half stroke under par, it returned in 2021 standing taller at 70.484. (Because of the pandemic, the 2020 edition was held at Sherwood Country Club in California.) After Matsuyama grabbed outright possession of the 36-hole lead, he sprinted through the finish line and posted 15-under 265 to win by five.

The composite routing of the King and Queen Courses is 38 yards longer this year at 7,079 yards. The extensions occurred at the par-3 fifth that now can play as long as 205 yards after an increase of 14 yards, and at the par-4 10th that’s an even 400 yards with 24 yards of added length.

Thursday’s opening round almost certainly will be a wet one, but dry conditions are expected for most of the remainder. Wind won’t trouble much and daytime temperatures will climb into the mid-70s, eventually, so scoring projects not to be harder than it was a year ago, but asking for another field average that’s a red number might be aggressive.

Weather permitting, bentgrass greens are poised to crank at 12½ feet on the Stimpmeter. The first two editions were prepped for 11½ and 12 feet, respectively. Members of the JGTO typically aren’t tested as often on this kind of pace. Also, because the tournament is scheduled a couple of weeks earlier than its first two spins in Japan, the thickest of the 3½-inch rough figures to be lusher than how returning entrants remember it.

Course management is the priority, but now that there’s experience on the greens, ball-strikers aren’t benefited as much as they are on a new track. They’re going to need to roll in some putts, too. Matsuyama wasn’t going to be denied, so citing the fact that he led the field in greens in regulation and ranked second in scrambling presents and unrealistic benchmark for all. (ShotLink isn’t utilized at Narashino.)

Speaking of hitting greens, the layout at Narashino serves as living history of golf in Japan. Each of the 18 holes has two greens. It was designed that way to extend playability across seasons of the year. The local rule is that when a golfer lands on the wrong green, he is allowed a free drop off the shortest of grass and no nearer the hole. For deeper detail on the possibilities this week, read this.

Last year’s ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP began at 8:30 a.m. local time on Thursday. Chiba is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Time in the United States, so it teed off at 7:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday. Consider this adjustment for how you monitor the action.

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