El PGA Tour packs its bags this week for its third tournament of the autumn calendar. It leaves the United States and even changes continents to compete at the Yokohama Country Club in the Japanese city of Yokohama for the Baycurrent Classic, a tournament that offers eight million dollars in prizes and, more importantly at this stage of the season, an opportunity to earn key points to maintain playing rights on the circuit for 2026, which will be retained by the top 100 in the FedEx at the end of the year, or to fight for a place in the first designated events of the next season.
The event previously known as the Zozo Championship, which changes its name this year, debuts at a new venue, a course about 40 kilometres south of Tokyo, founded in 1960, designed by Takeo Aiyama. For this American tour tournament, the original course has been chosen, which combines 16 holes from the west course with two from the east course of the 36 that make up the club. It will undoubtedly be a recognition for Japanese golf, which since 1993 has had at least one player on the circuit, including five in this 2025: Hideki Matsuyama, Ryo Hisatsune, Takumi Kanaya, Kaito Onishi, and Rikuya Hoshino.
Hoshino is the only one of the five who will not be present this week at an event co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO) in which 14 members of this Asian tour managed to qualify. Since the creation of the Baycurrent Classic (Zozo Championship) in 2019, six different players from Japan have finished in the top ten: Hideki Matsuyama (first in 2021 and second in 2019), Ryo Ishikawa (tied fourth in 2023), Kensei Hirata (tied sixth in 2023), Ryo Hisatsune (tied sixth in 2023), Yuta Sugiura (tied sixth in 2024), and Takumi Kanaya (tied seventh in 2021). Early risers will need to keep an eye on them…
But beyond what it means for the Asian country’s golf, no less than 13 of the top 50 in the world golf rankings will be in Yokohama this week in search of victory. Among them, two top 10 players like Xander Schauffele, fourth in the world, and Collin Morikawa, ninth. A rather strong field that includes a good handful of players who were last week at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, including the runner-up, Garrick Higgo, who narrowly missed out on a victory he was close to in the final round.
There will be no Spaniards in this Baycurrent Classic, but there could be a nice twist that, in some way, could positively affect them. The Swede Alex Noren, ranked 113th in the FedEx, will seek in Japan the points that bring him closer to that top 100 that will retain playing rights for 2026. It is the first open path for the golfer from Stockholm, who, positioned among the top 10 in the Race to Dubai of the DP World Tour, would regain a PGA Tour card for the next year, if he maintains the position, in case he cannot retain it directly.
However, if Noren manages to accumulate enough points by the end of the autumn calendar of the American tour to break into that top 100 of the PGA Tour and secure another year, he would free up one of the 10 available spots in the European circuit to pack his bags for the United States. Positions for which, among others, players like Ángel Ayora, 27th in the Race, or Eugenio López-Chacarra, 31st, are competing, without ruling out important results from other members of the Armada in the DP World Tour that would allow them to join that fight.
