PGA DFS Core Plays: ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP
Top-ranked grinder, Notorious, breaks down his favorite daily fantasy golf plays at various salary ranges for the coming week’s golf tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
Zozo Championship
I’m not going to lie, it was close to being a perfect week for the core plays and the bets. Unfortunately, Xander Schauffele was unable to hold his 36-hole lead and Russell Henley was unable to hold his 54-hole lead. They still finished second and third and Daniel Berger rounded out the picks with a T28. It was the best week of picks since the restart, but we sure could have used the 90-to-1 outright on Henley. Luckily, he helped me cash in DFS and still managed to cash his top five at 14-to-1. As for the winner, Jason Kokrak ran hotter than the sun last week. He’s certainly a below-average putter over the course of his season, but gained over 10 strokes on the greens last week and didn’t make a single bogey on Sunday. Congrats to the big man and anyone that loaded up on him.
This week we head to Hollywood for the Zozo Championship. The Asian swing was unfortunately canceled due to COVID, which is why we’ve had new courses in the rotation for this and last week’s events. Sherwood Country Club is a Par 72 that features five par fives and five par threes. It’s incredible short by PGA Tour standards and was last seen in tournament rotation at the Hero World Challenge back in 2013. Based on the most recent winners (Zach Johnson, Graeme McDowell, Tiger Woods, and Jim Furyk) and player quotes about the course, this definitely sets up as a second shot course. Distance will obviously help if you can keep it in the fairway, but look for many to club down off the tee.
The winning scores on this course have ranged from 10-under to 17-under, but keep in mind this was used to host the World Challenge, which features less than 20 golfers in the field each year. Given how much better golfers are now and the fact that we have 80 teeing it up, I would expect the winning score to be at least 20-under par. The courses main defenses are wind and pin placements and tournament officials can only control one of those things. As of Monday afternoon, it doesn’t look like wind will be an issue. The current forecast calls for less than 10 MPH wind on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. As always, I have included the link to the closest wind tower to the course.
The fairways and greens are both made of bentgrass, although the greens do have a little poa annua in them as well. The greens are fairly large (7,000 square feet on average) and should be relatively easy to hit for the field, but hitting the right section is important if you want to make birdies. The fairways are lined with trees and the course features a number of doglegs, which makes it difficult to overpower off the tee. Water is in play on nearly half the holes. Without recent course data to rely on, I’m looking to #PlayTheBestPlays rather than focusing on a specific skill set. With this being a no-cut event, it does make sense to chase the birdie makers over the bogey avoiders.
Note: the late-week update is now featured in my model breakdown video. I will post the link here.