The 2024 ZOZO Championship is underway at Accordia Narashino Country Club in Japan.
A strong field, including defending champion Collin Morikawa and world number two Xander Schauffele, has made the trip across the Pacific for the FedEx Cup fall event.
Justin Thomas is also in action in what is his first outing since finishing T14 at the season-ending Tour Championship.
The reduced 78-man field makes the ZOZO Championship fairly lucrative and a far cry from the other events that occur during the fall stretch of the season. The Procore Championship, Shriners Children’s Open, and Sanderson Farms Championship are three examples of events that provide chances for lesser players to secure PGA Tour cards for the following season.
And Golf Channel pundit Ryan Lavner believes those who are fighting hard to make the top 125 have every right to be aggrieved with the limited field in action this week.
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Lavner, speaking on the Golf Channel, admitted claimed that the reduced field makes a complete mockery of the fall stretch thus far.
“I don’t think this is working, whatever this is that the PGA Tour is trying to do this Fall,” Lavner said. “Interest is low. The top players are not turning up. I think the ZOZO Championship is emblematic of what is wrong with this. You cannot have a 78-player field, made up of some players from the Japan tour, as well as some sponsor exemptions and guaranteed points in what is essentially an elongated version of Q school.”
Lavner continued: “Commissioner Jay Monahan has told us the importance of the FedEx Cup Fall: This is where lives can change, where career trajectories can change. These are all tournaments that have meaning. Well, you are watering that down or essentially prioritising the players who are in this limited field but offering free points.
“They’ve just been travelling from Mississippi to Vegas trying to accrue points and make sure they stay among the top 125, and then all of a sudden, you have eight players who are ranked outside the top 110 in the FedEx Cup points who are now gifted points at a time of the season where it’s vitally important to be accumulating those points.
“It just doesn’t work. If I were a rank-and-file PGA Tour player who has been grinding all season, who has been grinding all Fall, who is booking a trip in the coming weeks to Bermuda and Sea Island, trying to get enough points to stay on the PGA Tour in 2025, I would be furious if I were not in the ZOZO Championship field and being able to cash in on those free points.”
PGA Tour make mistake at ZOZO Championship
The ZOZO Championship is an excellent event, and the PGA Tour must make more of an effort to travel overseas. Big-name players are clearly interested in doing so, and it’s a superb move to grow the game further.
Unfortunately, the decision to make the ZOZO part of the FedEx Cup fall is bizarre. As Lavner mentions, those who have been grinding over the past month but are not in the field are at an extreme disadvantage and could ultimately miss out on a full PGA Tour card.
The ZOZO Championship should have been moved closer to the end of the year and branded as an invitational event, somewhat like the Hero World Challenge.
Another option for tour officials would be to move the Japan stop to before the FedEx Cup playoffs and make it a regular PGA Tour event.
Right now, the decision to include a limited-field event right in the middle of the fall stretch is justifiably being torn to shreds.
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