Jetting to Japan.
The third event of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Fall series will be the Baycurrent Classic (formerly the Zozo Championship) at Yokohama Country Club. A limited yet strong 78-player field will vie for part of an $8 million purse, with the winner collecting $1,440,000.
From its field, course, history, tee times and how to watch, here’s everything you need to know for the 2025 Baycurrent Classic.
Several Top Players Making the Trip
Several of the world’s best players are teeing it up in Japan.
It’s highlighted by Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa, who won the 2023 event. There’s also Hideki Matsuyama, Chris Gotterup, Aldrich Potgieter, Brian Campbell, Sungjae Im, Adam Scott, Michael Kim, Billy Horschel, Sahith Theegala and defending champion Nico Echavarria.
The tournament is co-sanctioned with the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO) and 14 JGTO members are in the field this week.
There are also 40 players who competed in last week’s Sanderson Farms Championship, six of whom finished in the top 10: Garrick Higgo, Rasmus Højgaard, Vince Whaley, Danny Walker, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Eric Cole.
Many of those players are looking to lock up status for 2026 by finishing within the top 100 in FedEx Cup points at the conclusion of the seven-tournament fall series. Some names on the bubble playing in Japan are Højgaard (No. 75), Gary Woodland (No. 76), Ryo Hisatsune (No. 83), Michael Thorbjornsen (No. 90), Joel Dahmen (No. 103) and Alex Noren (No. 113).
Moving to a New Course
This year’s Baycurrent Classic is in uncharted waters.
After six iterations of the tournament, the 2025 edition will be contested at Yokohama Country Club for the first time.
Roughly 20 miles south of Tokyo, the 36-hole course was established in 1960 by Takeo Aiyama before the West Course was redesigned by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in 2016.
The Baycurrent layout will be a 7,315-yard, par 71. In preparation for its PGA Tour debut, the course underwent fairway line adjustments, rough was added and new fairway bunkers were put on holes No. 2 and 15, with new tees on Nos. 5, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 18. There were also trees removed right of the fairway on No. 18 to expose the penalty area. The greens are bentgrass, its fairways are Korai zoysia and the rough is Noshiba zoysia.
The tournament will consist of 16 holes from the West Course and two holes from the East Course.
“It’s honestly an incredible golf course,” Morikawa said. “The greens are some of the best greens I think we've played on on Tour and just the way the design of the golf course with a lot of bowl greens, sloped edges, it makes the green complexes a lot smaller than what we see. So it’ll be a great test.”
History: Tiger’s Record-Tying Triumph
Tiger Woods made history at the 2019 Zozo Championship, his last win on Tour.
He had won the Masters earlier that year, but underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair minor ligament damage in his left knee after the BMW Championship. The Zozo was his first start since then.
Woods began the week in Japan with three consecutive bogeys, but then put on a ball-striking clinic and secured a wire-to-wire win over Matsuyama by three strokes.
“You never know what a round of golf is going to unfold and he hit it in the water off the first, hooked a tee shot off the next and then he bogeyed the next and he was 3 over,” Tommy Fleetwood, Woods’s early-week playing partner that week, recalled to PGATour.com.
“But from that point on … it probably is the best round of golf I’ve ever watched. Like just the way he conducted it. The way he played, the control he had of his golf ball. I shook his hand and I was like, ‘Tiger, that was really good today.’ And he just looks at me and he went, ‘How about that, huh?’ with that big grin of his. And at that point, I was like, man, even he knows it was so good. So yeah, it was very, very impressive.”
That was the 800th time in the ShotLink era (since 2003) that a player started a tournament with three straight holes over par, but the first time they went on to win.
The victory, of course, was the 15-time major champion’s 82nd on Tour, tying Sam Snead for the most all-time.
“To have won this tournament in Japan, it’s just so ironic because I’ve always been a global player,” Woods said afterward. “I’ve always played all around the world and to tie the record outside the United States is pretty cool.”
Injuries have hampered Woods since then. And though it may be unlikely, some still hold out hope the 49-year-old will break the record with win No. 83.
How to Watch (all times ET)
- Wednesday-Saturday: 11 p.m.–3 a.m. (Golf Channel)
First- and Second-Round Tee Times
Tee times for the first and second rounds of the Baycurrent Classic pic.twitter.com/8k4oLcys07
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) October 7, 2025
This article was originally published on www.si.com as 2025 Baycurrent Classic Preview: Field, Course, History, Tee Times, How to Watch.
