19th Hole
The 2021 ZOZO Championship betting tips & selections

The PGA Tour will head to Japan this week for just the second time in history to play the ZOZO Championship at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club. The event was played at the course in 2019 but had to move to Las Vegas in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club is a par 70 measuring 7,041 yards and features bentgrass greens. The course has a unique design with five par 3’s and three par 5’s.
The ZOZO Championship is a no-cut event and will feature 78 golfers.
When analyzing the odds board, there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of value at the top. Both Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele lead the way and are priced in the +600 range. Although both golfers are deserving favorites and more than capable, they are both priced too short for my liking. The field is small and a bit weaker than expected, which has made finding value on the board quite difficult this week. Therefore, I have made a smaller betting card with three selections as follows:
Tommy Fleetwood (+2500): It is common knowledge among PGA Tour fans that Tommy Fleetwood has never won a professional tournament on American soil to this point in his career. Luckily for Tommy, this week’s event will take place in Japan.
The statistics for Fleetwood aren’t extraordinarily impressive of late, but he has had some solid finishes and seems to be playing better golf. I thought he played very well at the Ryder Cup from tee to green and followed that performance up with a 7th place finish at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
When the Englishman is at his best, he is a golfer who can get very hot with the irons and make birdies in bunches. This is a shorter course where he should be able to club down and keep the ball in the fairway. Fleetwood also has familiarity with the course, which most of the field does not and should provide a clear advantage. In 2019, Fleetwood finished in 22nd place at Narashino Country Club.
Statistics can be extremely helpful when making decisions about which golfers to bet, but at times it pays to go with your gut. I have an inkling that Tommy will have a great week in Japan and have a chance to win this week.
Rickie Fowler (+3000): There is no denying that Rickie Fowler has been extremely inconsistent since his last PGA Tour victory in January of 2019. Last week we saw a glimpse of vintage Rickie en route to his third-place finish at The CJ Cup. It is absolutely fair to expect him to come back down to earth this week and show more of the inconsistency we have grown accustomed to. However, I do think we saw some signs last week that show he may be figuring his golf swing out and making a resurgence.
The most substantial reason why Fowler’s performance may not have been a fluke was his statistical performance from tee to green. An absolutely stacked field made the trip to Las Vegas last week, and Fowler ranked first among the field in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, gaining a whopping 8.9 strokes. He also gained 8.3 strokes on the field in “Fairways Gained”, which should translate quite nicely to what he will need to do this week in Japan. Narashino Country Club is a tight tree-lined golf course that makes accuracy off of the tee essential. Fowler was in total control of the golf ball last week, and I expect that to carry over to the ZOZO Championship.
There will be skepticism about his ability to actually win when he hasn’t done so in so long, but if there were ever a time to take a chance on Rickie, it is a week after he played his best golf in years and at a course that should perfectly complement his skill set.
Carlos Ortiz (+6600): Carlos Ortiz really struggled on Thursday last week in Las Vegas but was excellent in the following three rounds and bounced back to finish in 25th place. The turnaround was due to a superb week statistically from tee to green. The 30-year old gained 6.1 strokes on the field in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green for the week. Additionally, he gained 4.6 strokes on approach, which was good for fourth in the field. The only part of his game that was subpar on the week was his putting, where he struggled and lost 3.4 strokes on the field with the flat stick.
A strong reason to believe in Ortiz’ chances at Narashino Country Club this week is his recent performance in the Japan Olympics. Representing Mexico, Ortiz was in 1st place after round two of the event and looked like a strong challenger for the Gold medal. Although he fell apart on Sunday, he certainly showed enough comfortability playing in Japan to believe he could be a threat once again this week at Narashino Country Club.
19th Hole
‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish

An opening round of 77 left LPGA pro Jenny Shin with a mountain to climb at last week’s AIG Women’s Open.
However, fighting back with rounds of 69 and 67, Shin found herself six shots off the lead and just outside the top 10 heading into Sunday as she went in search of her first major victory.
Shin, who won the US Girls’ Junior at just 13, couldn’t back those rounds up on Sunday, though, and after playing her opening nine holes of the final round in level par, she then bogeyed three holes coming home to slip down the leaderboard and eventually finish T23.
Taking to X following the final round, Shin offered a frustrated and honest take on how she was feeling, posting: “Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish.”
Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish
— Jenny Shin (@JennyShin_LPGA) August 3, 2025
Shin has made 11 cuts in 13 starts on the LPGA Tour this season, but has been plagued by frustrating Sunday finishes throughout the year. Shin ranks 102nd on tour this year out of 155 for Round 4 scoring in 2025.
Miyu Yamashita won the 2025 AIG Women’s Open with a composed final round of 70 to win her first major of her career by two strokes.
19th Hole
How a late golf ball change helped Cameron Young win for first time on PGA Tour

Cameron Young won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his first victory on the PGA Tour.
Young dominated all weekend at TPC Sedgefield, running away from the pack to win by six strokes and put himself in contention for a Ryder Cup pick in September.
Ahead of the event, the 28-year-old switched to a Pro V1x prototype golf ball for the first time, following recent testing sessions with the Titleist Golf Ball R&D team.
Interestingly, Young played a practice round accompanied by Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s Director of Tour Research & Validation, at TPC Schedule early last week with both his usual Pro V1 Left Dot ball and the new Pro V1x prototype.
Per Titleist, by the second hole Young was exclusively hitting shots with the Pro V1x prototype.
“We weren’t sure if he was going to test it this week, but as he was warming up, he asked to hit a couple on the range,” Pitts said. “He was then curious to see some shots out on the course. Performance-wise, he was hitting tight draws everywhere. His misses were staying more in play. He hit some, what he would call ‘11 o’clock shots,’ where again he’s taking a little something off it. He had great control there.”
According to Titleist, the main validation came on Tuesday on the seventh hole of his practice round. The par 3 that played between 184 and 225 yards during the tournament called for a 5-iron from Young, or so he thought. Believing there was “no way” he could get a 6-iron to the flag with his Left Dot, Young struck a 5-iron with the Pro V1x prototype and was stunned to see the ball land right by the hole.
“He then hits this 6-iron [with the Pro V1x prototype] absolutely dead at the flag, and it lands right next to the pin, ending up just past it,” Pitts said. “And his response was, ‘remarkable.’ He couldn’t believe that he got that club there.”
Following nine holes on Tuesday and a further nine on Wednesday, Young asked the Titleist team to put the ProV1x balls in his locker. The rest, as they say, is history.
19th Hole
Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’

Rickie Fowler fired an opening round of one-under par on Thursday at the Wyndham Championship, as the Californian looks to make a FedEx Cup playoff push.
Fowler is currently 61st in the standings, so will need a strong couple of weeks to extend his season until the BMW Championship, where only the top 50 in the standings will tee it up.
Heading into the final stretch of the season, Fowler has made an equipment switch of note, changing into new iron shafts, as well as making a switch to his driver shaft.
The 36-year-old revealed this week that he has switched from his usual KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons, a change he first put into play at last month’s Travelers Championship.
Speaking on the change to reporters this week, Fowler made note that the graphite shafts offer “something that’s a little easier on the body.”
“I mean, went to the week of Travelers, so been in for, I guess that’s a little over a month now. Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed to get very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”
Fowler has also made a driver shaft change, switching out his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX for a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft in his Cobra DS-Adapt X, which he first implemented a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.
However, according to Fowler himself, the testing and potential changes are not done yet.
“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time. Yeah, I feel like we’re always trying to search, one, to get better but are there ways to make things easier, whether that’s physically, mentally, whatever it may be. So yeah, I thought they were good enough to obviously put into play and looking forward to doing some more testing.”
Fowler gets his second round at TPC Sedgefield underway at 7.23 a.m ET on Friday.