The second staging of the Olympic golf tournament gets underway in Japan on Thursday when 64 players head to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics looking to get their hands on a gold medal which can either make or crown a career.
Justin Rose crowned his career with the gold medal in Rio five years ago but he hasn’t qualified to allow him to defend the title. That means we are guaranteed a new champion from a field which is solid if not quite as elite as we would like.
Recent Winners
2016 – Justin Rose
The Course
We are at the East Course at Kasumigaseki Country Club for the four days this week. There is no cut so the players will play all four rounds. The course is a par 71 which measures 7,447 yards and with the rains that have been in the area over the last few days the course is likely to play a full yardage. There are three par 5s and four par 3s so there is a traditional look about the track in that regard. This is a course which has been modified by Tom Fazio making it more difficult.
The course is treelined and although the targets off the tee are pretty generous, any drive that is too wayward will be punished. That will either be by deep bunkers, lush rough or the trees themselves. The greens have been redesigned to be full of undulations so you get the impression that this is a course where meticulous approach play and solid putting, much like another Fazio design at Quail Hollow. Length might be important as well.
The Field
The same quality of field hasn’t yet been established for the men’s tournament as it has the women’s event which comes next week however The Open champion Collin Morikawa heads up a four prong American attack on the gold medal. He’ll be looking to hold off Xander Schauffele, the Players champion Justin Thomas and Patrick Reed who got in when Bryson DeChambeau tested positive for Covid-19.
Great Britain won the gold medal five years ago and Tommy Fleetwood and Paul Casey will be looking to keep the gong on these shores while Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy lead the Irish charge. Other Europeans with chances in this field are Viktor Hovland of Norway, Alex Noren of Sweden, and Guido Migliozzi of Italy. The rest of the world challenge is headed up by Sungjae Im, Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman, Corey Conners and the home star Hideki Matsuyama.
Market Leaders
Given that approach play is such a key feature of this track then it makes sense that Collin Morikawa is the 15/2 favourite for the gold medal. He’ll be full of confidence after his win at The Open but up until then he hadn’t given off the impression that he was a particularly good traveller. He sets the standard on the form of his win at Royal St Georges but you sense he is plenty short enough off the back of that in a more competitive field than a 15/2 favourite.
Xander Schauffele comes next in the betting at 9/1. He has a WGC win in Asia so that is a huge tick in his box but his form hasn’t been quite as pinpoint. Ordinarily you would say he has the skill set to be a danger around here but this isn’t a normal golf tournament where there is a bucket load of cash for the higher up the field you finish. Here it is all about pushing for a top three finish and I’m not quite convinced he is in the form to do that.
Their teammate Justin Thomas comes next in the betting at 11/1 but his form has been all over the place since he landed The Players Championship earlier in the year. At his best there is no doubt he is one of the leading lights in the field but the big question is how close to his best he is. He ticks a lot of boxes outside of the form so if he can just find some confidence early he could be dangerous but you would be taking that at face value which isn’t ideal.
Two men will tee off as a 12/1 chance to win the tournament. They are the home hero Hideki Matsuyama and Norway number one Viktor Hovland. Matsuyama won a couple of tournaments around here earlier in his career but he is under immense pressure in his homeland. Hovland certainly has the tee to green game to get the job done around here but whether he has the short game and putting form is a different thing. It is 14/1 bar.
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Main Bets
Given that he is the only one in the field with course experience heading into the week it is hard to argue against Hideki Matsuyama adding the gold medal to the green jacket he picked up earlier in the year. This will have been a target of his for a while with the Olympics in the nation he represents and while there will be pressure on him, we should remember there isn’t a crowd here this week and even when there is he still has an excellent record in Japan, albeit against lesser fields than the one he will battle against here. Matsuyama ticks all the boxes in terms of style and that experience of the track gives him a massive advantage.
Garrick Higgo won on a Tom Fazio designed track when he took down the Palmetto Championship last month and it might be that a reunion with a Fazio design brings out more winning potential in the South African here. Higgo has won three times in all this year and the soft track certainly isn’t going to inconvenience him. If this is a low scoring event he ticks that box but when the grind is needed he showed in the Palmetto that he can hang tough too. He’s a big price here at 50/1.
Outsiders
I’ll play a couple of outsiders who I fancy can go well at massive prices. The first of those is Anirban Lahiri who I took in the Barbasol Championship the week The Open took place. He finished third there finishing with a 65 so he will take a lot of confidence into this tournament in conditions that are familiar too him. His putting at the Barbasol was exception which bodes well here and if he can set up enough birdie chances, which he should because he is an aggressive iron player, then he could run better than his humungous odds suggest.
The last bet I’ll chance is the Paraguayan ace Fabrizio Zanotti. This course might be too long for him but I’ll pay to find out because the strength of his game is his tee to green prowess. He has plenty of good form on treelined tracks and although his putter doesn’t always cooperate, when it does he can be hard to beat. He has a win in Asia having won in similar conditions to this in Malaysia in 2017 and he has a number of top 10s in China so this part of the world has been kind to him and if he can hole some putts and get some confidence early he could deliver something special.
Tips
Back H.Matsuyama to win Olympic Golf (e/w) for a 2/10 stake at 13.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-7)
Back him here:
Back G.Higgo to win Olympic Golf (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Coral (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back A.Lahiri to win Olympic Golf (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 201.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back F.Zanotti to win Olympic Golf (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 301.00 with Sky Bet (1/5 1-6)
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