2021 ZOZO Championship: Round 2 Matchups

Oct 21, 2021

4for4 Illustrations

Japan's hometown hero, Hideki Matsuyama, returned to his native country and shot a 6-under par, 64 in Thursday's opening round of the ZOZO Championship. His approach game was masterful, hitting 16-of-18 greens in regulation. This performance from a golfer who before the round started claimed:

If my game scored 10 out of 10 at the Masters, now I would say it scores less than 1. I will be struggling this week but I am here in Japan so I am motivated to be in contention.

Joining him at 6-under is the talented Joaquin Niemann, who also had a bogey-free round. At +275, Matsuyama is the current outright favorite just ahead of Niemann (+450). The surprise of the round, though, goes to the current leader. Sitting at 7-under par is Japanese Tour upstart, Hiroshi Iwata. He did not have a great ball-striking round, hitting slightly over 60% of fairways and greens in regulation, but he led the field in putting at only 1.36 putts per GIR. As typically happens, Iwata will most likely fade from the top during the second round, leaving a host of talented players to chase down Matsuyama and Niemann.

For live betting purposes, other players to keep an eye on who have the talent to catch fire and rise up the leaderboard include Matt Wallace (5-under, +1600), Cameron Tringale (3-under, +2200), Jhonattan Vegas (3-under, +2000) and Tommy Fleetwood (3-under, +1400). Of course, we can't forget about Xander Schauffele (Even, +2000) and Collin Morikawa (1-over, +3300). However, I believe a player as good as Matsuyama will not be overtaken by someone six-plus shots behind.