Another week, another great PGA Tour event to look forward to! This week we head to Sherwood Country Club in California for the annual ZOZO Championship. Tiger Woods is the reigning champion and will be back to defend his title this year, marking his first start since the U.S. Open over a month ago.
As usual, we have you covered with a full field and course preview as well as our best bets and value tips for the tournament below.
ZOZO Championship Betting Tips
The Field
The No.1 ranked player in the world, Dustin Johnson, was forced to pull out of the CJ Cup last week due to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis and he will remain out for the ZOZO this week. The field is still pretty stacked without Johnson though, and once again just 78 players will compete and there will be no cut after two rounds.
The top ranked players who will be competing this week include the likes of Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Tyrrell Hatton, Webb Simpson, Patrick Reed, Matthew Wolff, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Hideki Matsuyama and Tony Finau.
Headlining the field though will of course be Tiger Woods. The greatest player of all time tied Sam Snead’s PGA Tour victory record with his 82nd title at the ZOZO Championship in Japan last season and he will be looking to go back to back this week.
The Course
The Sherwood Country Club lies just outside of Thousand Oaks in California and was a log time host of Tiger Wood’s event the Hero World Challenge through the 2000’s. Through its 14 year run at Sherwood from 2000-2013, Tiger won the event a ridiculous 5 times and finished runner up on a further five occasions, marking one of the most dominant stretches at a single golf course in PGA Tour history.
The course plays as a Par 72 at just over 7,000 yards and was designed by Jack Nicklaus. It is a private, members only course which features some high profile members including the likes of Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Caitlyn Jenner, Wayne Gretzky, Jack Nicholson, Joe Pesci, Will Smith and Justin Timberlake.
Elevation change is the main feature of Sherwood Country Club as well as tall trees lining the fairways and a wide variety of hole types. Water is in play on a bunch of holes so accuracy off the tee will be more important than length.
Predictions
Xander Schauffele has been so close on so many occasions throughout the last year that you just have to feel like a win isn’t too far away. He finished 2nd to Jason Kokrak at the CJ Cup on the weekend, making it his fourth runner up finish in the last 12 months. He had the lowest score off the stick at the Tour Championship before finishing 5th at the U.S. Open. Love the value of the young gun this week.
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Tiger Woods hasn’t played much golf of late but how can you look past his record at Sherwood Country Club. In his last 12 events at Sherwood Country Club, his record reads. 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 14, 1, 1, 2, 1, 4, 2. Ten top two finishes and never finishing lower than 14th in 12 events. Outstanding.
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Our dark horse pick this week comes in the form of Paul Casey. The Englishman hasn’t set the world alight on the PGA Tour of late, finishing in 69th place at the CJ Cup last week, however, his record at Sherwood speaks for itself. He has competed there on six different occasions and has never finished lower than 11th place and has three top five finishes.
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