Zozo Championship: Steve Palmer's preview, best bets, free tips, course guide

Golf tips, best bets and player analysis for the Zozo Championship at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club, Japan, on the PGA Tour.

Where to watch

Live on Sky Sports Golf from 4am Thursday

Best bets

Abraham Ancer
1pt each-way 110-1 Betfred
Back this tip with Coral here

Emiliano Grillo
1pt each-way 70-1 Betfred
Back this tip with Paddy Power here

Corey Conners
1pt each-way 66-1Betway, Sky Bet
Back this tip with bet365 here

Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods and Hideki Matsuyama all got a sneak peek of the Zozo Championship venue when they played in the Japan Skins exhibition match on Monday, but none of the all-star quartet made the course look easy.

Day was victorious, with McIlroy and Woods sharing second place, but Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club was the main winner, and despite not having many yards on the card, the latest PGA Tour track seems no pushover.

McIlroy and Matsuyama, first and second for par-three performance on the PGA Tour last season and tackling a layout with five short holes this week, make most appeal of the four Japan Skins combatants. Preference, though, is for three Zozo each-way investments on lesser-lights at much bigger prices.

Steve Palmer's top tip

Abraham Ancer 110-1

The inaugural Zozo Championship is a high-class affair boasting several household names, so plenty of guts will be required to claim the trophy, and Mexican Abraham Ancer has quickly shown himself to be full of bottle.

Ancer won in Canada on the Web.com Tour in 2015 – a playoff for the Nova Scotia Open – then by five shots in the 2018 Australian Open. The 28-year-old clearly travels well and his confidence for this latest foreign raid is particularly high, given he burst into the top 50 of the world rankings in August and has a Presidents Cup debut on the horizon.

Ancer showed his mettle in The Northern Trust, the opening event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, in which he battled manfully for the title with one of the most fearsome competitors in the sport. Patrick Reed edged him by a shot in the end, but the Liberty National shootout provided further evidence of Ancer's growing status in the game.

A share of 28th place followed in the BMW Championship, then 21st on his Tour Championship debut, before a month off to count earnings and blessings as an ever improving world number 37.

Missed cuts by a shot in the Safeway Open and the Shriners were of little concern as Ancer shook off rust on his return, while he improved as the tournament wore on in the CJ Cup last week, a four-under-par weekend setting him up nicely for Japan.

Narashino seems like ideal terrain for Ancer to show off his skills – chiefly driving accuracy and general solidity from tee to green – and three-figure prices appear generous in the extreme.

Next best bet

Emiliano Grillo 70-1

The test of the tree-lined and tight Zozo venue should also appeal to Emiliano Grillo, who, like Ancer, typically operates in tidy fashion from tee to green, churning out fairways and greens.

Grillo, like Ancer, missed the cut on the mark in the Safeway and the Shriners, before sharing 26th place in the CJ Cup last week, warming his engine for Japan, where he has played well previously.

For many of the Zozo field, this is the first time they have set foot in the Land of the Rising Sun, but Grillo was a playoff loser in the 2016 Handa Global Cup on the Japan Tour and has since had a couple of respectable spins (16-8) in the Dunlop Phoenix Open.

Grillo, second in the CIMB Classic last year and clearly comfortable competing in Asia, became a PGA Tour champion at the age of 23. Almost exactly four years later, the underachieving Argentinian can go close to a second success.

Other selection

Corey Conners 66-1

Another well travelled player who will be undaunted by this mission is Corey Conners, who started life on the Canadian Tour, before the South American Tour, the Web.com Tour, then the PGA Tour, on which he has enjoyed a magnificent 2019.

Second place in the Sanderson Farms Championship last year started the ascent of Conners, who followed up with third spot in the Sony Open, before winning the Texas Open. A run to the Tour Championship included seventh place in the BMW Championship and the 27-year-old continues to rise up the world rankings.

A share of 13th place in the Safeway Open, where he closed with a 65, was followed by 12th spot last week in the CJ Cup, where he signed off with a 66 bettered by only three players in the field. This greens-in-regulation machine should handle the previously uncharted PGA Tour terrain of Narashino better than most over the next four days.

Players to note

Rafael Cabrera-Bello
The steady Spaniard, runner-up to Jon Rahm in his national Open earlier this month, shared 26th spot in Korea last week and could claim some place money for his Zozo backers.

Chez Reavie
The accurate Kansas man, third in the US Open in June before winning the Travelers Championship the following week, could easily take a shine to the Zozo venue.

Billy Horschel
Another lively outsider for Zozo glory, having finished fourth in the BMW PGA Championship last month. His best round of a poor CJ Cup was a Sunday 69.

Xander Schauffele
The 2018 WGC-HSBC Champions victor would be a strong candidate to thrive at Narashino, but for the fact he has not competed since September 8 and is probably a little rusty.

Shane Lowry
The Open champion should enjoy the Narashino layout and must enter calculations, but a sloppy missed cut in the Italian Open last time out was off-putting.

Justin Thomas
The CJ Cup champion won at Nine Bridges for a second time on Sunday, bolstering a strong record in Asia, but he looks plenty short enough at a new venue this week.

Accordia Golf Narashino course guide

Course Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club, Chiba, Japan
Prize money $9.75m ($1.755m to the winner)
Length 7,041 yards
Par 70
Field 78

When to bet By midnight Wednesday

When to watch Live on Sky Sports Golf from 4am Thursday

Time difference Japan is eight hours ahead of the UK and Ireland

Last week - CJ Cup 1 J Thomas (7-1), 2 D Lee (250-1), T3 H Matsuyama (18-1), G Woodland (28-1), C Smith (33-1)

Course overview Accordia Narashino makes its PGA Tour debut this week, although it hosted the Japan Skins match between Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods and Hideki Matsuyama on Monday.

The club was opened in 1965 and is a 36-hole complex – the Zozo Championship will use a composite course of the best 18 holes at the venue. There are only three par-fives on the scorecard – the 587-yard sixth, the 608-yard 14th and the 562-yard 18th – and five par-threes. The toughest holes are the 505-yard par-four fourth, the 486-yard par-four 11th and the 490-yard par-four 12th.

This is a tight, tree-lined, parkland layout with water in play on five holes, and numerous doglegs. Curiously, there are two greens on each hole (obviously only one of each will be used each day, with free drops off the other) and they are all fairly small.

Weather forecast Thursday and Saturday seem set to be clear, but Friday and Sunday should see plenty of rain, with light to moderate breezes throughout.

Type of player suited to the challenge This appears a stiff ball-striking test. Players will need to work the ball both ways off the tee and misses face being punished by dense sets of trees. Tee-to-green solidity should be handsomely rewarded.

Key attribute Accuracy

Follow us on Twitter

Like us on Facebook