Baycurrent Classic 2025 Picks, Best Bets and Golf Odds:
PGA Tour rookie Steven Fisk had not even recorded a Top 25 in any of his previous nine starts. Now he is a first-time PGA Tour winner courtesy of a final-round 64 to win the Sanderson Farms Championship at 24 under by two strokes over Garrick Higgo, who led after the second and third rounds. Fisk, an 80-1 pre-tournament price, cemented a full exemption as a winner on the PGA Tour through 2027. He is also now exempt for the 2026 editions of The Sentry, The Players Championship and the PGA Championship. And with 500 FedExCup points injected into his season total, he rises 70 spots to 65th in the FedExCup, where those 51-60 after the fall events earn spots into the first two “Signature” events — the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational — in 2026.
This week, the PGA Tour goes international as a 78-player field heads to Japan for the Baycurrent Classic.
Xander Schauffele (11-1) has never won this event but did win a big one in Japan as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics gold medalist.
Collin Morikawa (16-1) and Hideki Matsuyama (18-1) have both won this event, albeit on a different golf course (more on that below).
Chris Gotterup (22-1) won this past summer at the Genesis Scottish Open, while Alex Noren (22-1) has won twice on the DP World Tour within the last seven weeks and was a vice captain on the winning European team at the Ryder Cup.
Those next in the market include Si Woo Kim (22-1), Kurt Kitayama (22-1), Rasmus Højgaard (28-1), Kevin Yu (35-1), Min Woo Lee (35-1) and Michael Thorbjornsen (35-1).
Defending event champion Nico Echavarria is 90-1.
Here is a look at the odds at various books for this week’s entire field, courtesy of OddsChecker.
The Event
The Baycurrent Classic began as the ZOZO Championship in 2019 as the first PGA Tour event ever sanctioned in Japan (co-sanctioned with the Japan Golf Tour). Baycurrent, a Japanese consulting firm, takes over as the event sponsor this year.
The tournament also moves from the Narashino Country Club in Inzai, Chiba, Japan, which is about 90 minutes outside of Tokyo, to the Yokohama Country Club in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
The inaugural ZOZO Championship in 2019 was won by Tiger Woods. That win gave Tiger his 82nd PGA Tour victory, which still has him tied with Sam Snead for the most career PGA Tour wins. The 2020 ZOZO was held at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., due to COVID-19 restrictions and concerns in Japan and was won by Patrick Cantlay but returned to Japan in 2021 and was won by Hideki Matsuyama.
The Field
The field consists of only 78 players and there will be no cut.
Invitations go to the top 60 from last season’s FedExCup standings, the top eight from the Japan Golf Tour money list, the winner of the BMW Japan Golf Tour Championship Mori Building Cup, and nine sponsor exemptions.
The Course
Yokohama Country Club, about 20 miles south of Tokyo, was established in 1960 and is a 36-hole facility designed by the late Takeo Aiyama and Hideo Takemura. The West Course was remodeled by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in 2016.
This week’s course will be a composite of 16 holes from the West Course and two from the East.
The layout will play as a par-71 of 7,315 yards. It is unique and that it features only two par-5s, three par-3s, and has 13 par-4s.
Yokohama has wide Zoysiagrass (bouncy) fairways on this tree-lined parklands. It is heavily bunkered with 88 on the course and many in key landing areas.
The Bentgrass greens are 6,500 square feet on average and will roll a slower 11.5 on the stimpmeter. Nevertheless, they will be challenging with false fronts and plenty of undulations.
Aside from the recent courses in Japan — Narashino and Kasumigaseki — where many of these players have played, other potential course correlations include TPC Toronto, TPC San Antonio, Innisbrook, Colonial, Pinehurst No. 2 (another Coore/Crenshaw renovation) and Augusta National.
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Weather
Thursday’s forecast calls for heavy rain along with wind gusts that could reach 45 mph. Additional showers are expected for much of Saturday and Sunday.
ZOZO Championship Tournament History
2024: Nico Echavarria (-20/260); 250-1; Narashino CC
2023: Collin Morikawa (-14/266); 11-1; Narashino CC
2022: Keegan Bradley (-15/265); 40-1; Narashino CC
2021: Hideki Matsuyama (-15/265); 16-1; Narashino CC
2020: Patrick Cantlay (-23/265); 28-1; Sherwood CC
2019: Tiger Woods (-19/261); 33-1; Narashino CC
Statistical Analysis
The Zoysia rough is only about three inches, so players can still gain with the irons.
Strokes Gained: Approach — Average Per Round (2025 PGA Tour season)
- Collin Morikawa 0.765
- Nicolai Højgaard 0.600
- Rico Hoey 0.584
- Xander Schauffele 0.578
- Sami Valimaki 0.503
- Hideki Matsuyama 0.485
- Lee Hodges 0.432
- Si Woo Kim 0.423
- Bud Cauley 0.411
- Ryan Gerard 0.408
- Michael Kim 0.368
- Gary Woodland 0.364
- Kurt Kitayama 0.359
- Andrew Putnam 0.341
- Kevin Yu 0.339
- Emiliano Grillo 0.321
- Mac Meissner 0.316
Good Drives are drives where the player either hits the fairway off the tee OR the player misses the fairway but still hits the green or fringe in regulation.
Good Drives Gained (Last 50 rounds)
- Si Woo Kim 48.4
- Emiliano Grillo 48.2
- Collin Morikawa 44.9
- Takumi Kanaya 42
- Bud Cauley 37.4
- Joel Dahmen 36.3
- Andrew Putnam 36.1
- Rico Hoey 31.4
- Max McGreevy 29.1
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout 27.6
- Michael Thorbjornsen 26.2
- Sungjae Im 25
- Kevin Yu 23.1
- Alex Noren 22.2
- Lee Hodges 21.9
The fairways are wide at Yokohama, so players can attempt to bomb away off the tee.
Average Driving Distance (2025 PGA Tour season)
- Aldrich Potgieter 327.4
- Nicolai Højgaard 319.9
- Michael Thorbjornsen 318.5
- Rasmus Højgaard 318.4
- Kurt Kitayama 318.1
- Chris Gotterup 316.9
- Matti Schmid 315.3
- Keith Mitchell 314.9
- Min Woo Lee 314.4
- Isaiah Salinda 314.3
- Gary Woodland 314.3
- Wyndham Clark 312.9
- Xander Schauffele 312.8
- William Mouw 310.3
Thirteen of the 18 holes on this layout are par-4s.
Par-4 Birdie Or Better Percentage (2025 PGA Tour season)
- Kurt Kitayama 20.97%
- Keith Mitchell 20.96
- Danny Walker 20.51
- Rasmus Højgaard 20.39
- Michael Thorbjornsen 20.37
- Wyndham Clark 20.24
- Alex Smalley 20.16
- Aldrich Potgieter 19.89
- Karl Vilips 19.74
- Kevin Roy 19.63
- Sami Valimaki 19.36
- Chris Gotterup 19.11
The greens are well-protected by bunkers, so players will have to get up and down out of the traps at some point.
Sand Save Percentage (2025 PGA Tour season)
- Hideki Matsuyama 71.32%
- Michael Kim 71.31
- William Mouw 68.97
- Max Homa 66.67
- Ryo Hisatsune 66.36
- Min Woo Lee 64.58
- Si Woo Kim 64.49
- Andrew Putnam 64.20
- Keith Mitchell 64.15
- Adam Scott 63.81
- Sam Ryder 63.74
- David Lipsky 63.64
- Mac Meissner 63.46
- Austin Eckroat 62.96
- Chris Gotterup 62.89
Besides the extensive bunkering, the areas around most greens are mainly composed of short grass, which means chipping from those areas will have added importance this week.
Strokes Gained: Around The Green — Average Per Round (2025 PGA Tour season)
- Matt Wallace 0.564
- Sungjae Im 0.531
- Hideki Matsuyama 0.477
- Beau Hossler 0.446
- Andrew Putnam 0.439
- Taylor Moore 0.366
- Si Woo Kim 0.350
- Min Woo Lee 0.346
- Davis Riley 0.325
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout 0.300
- Mac Meissner 0.298
- Wyndham Clark 0.296
- Takumi Kanaya 0.264
The greens at Yokohama are Bentgrass.
Strokes Gained: Putting — Bentgrass Greens (Last 50 rounds)
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout 26.8
- Alex Noren 23.7
- Eric Cole 22.2
- Xander Schauffele 22
- Vince Whaley 21.3
- Brian Campbell 20.4 (30 rounds)
- Wyndham Clark 19.1
- Garrick Higgo 18.6
- Beau Hossler 18
- Sam Stevens 17.1
- Davis Riley 16.9
- Max Greyserman 12.7 (39 rounds)
- Adam Scott 12
- Mark Hubbard 11.1
Selections
Si Woo Kim 22-1 (DraftKings)
Kim finished fifth last time out at the BMW PGA Championship last month in England.
That followed 19th at the BMW Championship and 14th in the St. Jude Championship in his two FedExCup events.
In those three events, he ranked fourth, seventh and second, respectively, for Strokes Gained: Tee To Green and he’s sixth overall in that category on the PGA Tour this year.
Rasmus Højgaard 26-1 (Circa Sports)
Perhaps he is running a bit on fumes and has played a busy schedule, including the Ryder Cup, but Højgaard’s recent form cannot be ignored.
He finished T-3 last weekend at the Sanderson Farms and had a pair of runners-up in Denmark and Switzerland on the DP World Tour in August.
This should be a wedge-fest for the long-hitting Dane.
Gary Woodland 55-1 (FanDuel)
Woodland’s last time on the golf course for a competitive event was two weeks ago at the Ryder Cup as a vice captain for Team USA.
He ranked first for Driving Distance at the recent Procore Championship, and his 19th was a third straight top-25 on the PGA Tour, which followed a 23rd at the Wyndham Championship and a 20th in the 3M Open.
Woodland has a good history in Asia as a two-time runner-up at the former CIMB Classic in Malaysia, plus a second and a third at the CJ Cup in South Korea.
He has started to work back into form after brain surgery two years ago.
Mac Meissner 70-1 (BetRivers)
Meissner was the runner-up several weeks ago at the Wyndham Championship and had two other top-15 finishes in his last four starts.
Currently 85th in the FedExCup standings, Meissner needs one more good finish to ensure his card for next year.
Max Greyserman 70-1 (BetRivers)
After posting his fourth runner-up on the PGA Tour in his last two seasons at the Rocket Classic, Greyserman missed five of his last six cuts to conclude the regular season.
Nevertheless, he was runner-up in this event last year at Narashino, and this could be a good spot to get back on good form after a couple of weeks off.
Keita Nakajima 80-1 (BetRivers)
Nakajima is a five-time winner on the Japan Golf Tour.
He is also a semi-regular on the DP World Tour, where he has posted three top-5 finishes this season.
Any other wagers, including from the Open De Espana on the DP World Tour, will be available Wednesday at VSiN.com/picks
