Satoshi

Kodaira

Kodaira started the week at 154th in the FedExCup race, needing a top-4 finish to have a chance at cracking the FedExCup Playoffs. That’s far from an easy task considering he has just one top 10 in 103 career PGA TOUR events played. Of course, that one top 10 was a win at the 2018 RBC Heritage. Back to this week at Sedgefield Country Club, Kodaira has missed just six fairways through two days, currently 5th in that stat category. He’s parlayed that into 28 GIR (T41) and gained 3.3 strokes putting from there.

Kodaira opened his week with a 3-over 73 despite missing just two (of 13) fairways. It was more of the same today with one birdie offset by a four-pack of bogeys. He packed it up after the eighth hole today while he was four or five shots outside of the cutline. Playing his 97th career event on the PGA TOUR, this will go in the books as his first mid-tournament WD.

Kodaira twirled three sub-68 rounds at TPC Craig Ranch last year with a second-round 71 thrown in the mix as well. By week’s end, it was good for a T13 finish. More recently, he arrives with missed cuts in three of his last five starts. If you frame it another way, he arrives with top 35s in four of his last seven events played which isn’t all that bad. Playing only on conditional status, Kodaira is just 162nd in the FedExCup race and could use one or two big finishes before the season ends.

Koepka has dealt with plenty of injury concerns over the last few seasons but there is no word at press time what caused this mid-week change of plans. The Florida State product has played just once since the start of April and that was a missed cut at the Masters. Gamers should remove him from all weekly lineups and reassess ahead of next week’s PGA Championship.

The 32-year-old has won eight times around the globe, seven times on the Japan Golf Tour, most recently in December 2018 at the Golf Nippon JT Cup. Earlier that year in April, he won the 50th edition of the RBC Heritage in his tourney debut as a non-member and pre-tourney 200/1 outright, which remains his lone top 10 on the PGA TOUR in 93 events. That win, 79 starts ago, was in extra time over Si Woo Kim, coming from six back (T12) in the final round, and moved him to 27th in the Official World Golf Ranking. This week, Kodaira checked in as OWGR No. 300, has posted rounds of 67-69-67, and tallied 17 birdies against seven bogeys, five versus one today on 10 (of 13) fairways and 13 greens in regulation.

The 32-year-old missed both of his prior cuts in the event in 2020 and 2021, failing to record a round in the 60s. However, he checked in this week off a T12 at the Sony three weeks ago, where he was T119 after R1 (71-64-65-65), and continues the run-of-form with a 68-67 start this week (SH-PB). The Tokyo native, who is playing this season on conditional status (150th in FedExCup last season), won the 2018 RBC Heritage on debut as a non-member in his 15th career TOUR event and as a-then No. 46 in OWGR, outlasting Si Woo Kim in extra time after erasing a 6-shot deficit to begin the final frame. In 75 starts since, he’s yet to record another top-10 finish on TOUR. So far this week, Kodaira has one blemish, a double bogey-6 in R1, outpaced by 11 birdies, and moves over to MPCC for R3.

The 32-year-old Kodaira, No. 322 in the world rankings, last teed it up at the Wyndham Championship, where he missed the cut to end his season in August. He finished 150th on the FedExCup standings, making 13 cuts in 27 starts and earning the last conditional card on Tour for 2021-22 by two points over Puerto Rico’s Rafael Campos. His best finishes last season included a string of top-20 results beginning with a T-11 at the Wells Fargo Championship followed by a T-13 at the AT&T Byron Nelson and a T-19 at the Palmetto Championship at Congaree. In two previous starts at the Zozo, Kodaira finished T-37 in 2019, highlighted by a 66 in the second round at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club, and T-35 last year when the event was held at Sherwood Country Club in California due to the coronavirus pandemic. Kodaira’s lone PGA Tour win came at the 2018 RBC Heritage, where he drained a 25-foot birdie putt on the third hole of a playoff to beat South Korea’s Si Woo Kim.

After chasing a career-tying-low 63 with 72 in R2 (2 birdies, 2 bogeys, 1 double), the Japan native rebounded on Moving Day with four circles against two squares. On 11 (of 14) fairways and 13 greens in regulation, he eked out a 0.015 on approach, lost strokes off the tee (-0.434) and around the green (-0.322), but gained 2.804 on the green, No. 2 in the latter with a cumulative 8.104. In fact, the 31-year-old has lost ground in all strokes gained categories thru three rounds with the exception of SGP, so if he can find a way to match up his tee-to-green game with the flat stick, he could make a charge on Sunday. He’s vying for his second TOUR victory in 81 events, first since the 2018 RBC Heritage 66 starts ago as a non-member in his tourney debut, where he came from six back (T12) with 5-under 66 before dispatching Si Woo Kim with birdie on the third hole of sudden death. Kodaira, who checked in off three consecutive top-20 finishes, will play out of the seventh-to-last twosome in the finale with Bryson DeChambeau.

Play is still in progress but this will be the Japan native’s first 18-hole lead/co-lead in 81 events, and just the third time in his career that he’s in the top 10 after R1. The most recent, however, was three starts ago at the Wells Fargo in his event debut, where he was T10 before finishing a season-best T11 (68-72-68-73), which began a run of three consecutive top-20 finishes. Today’s 63 matches his career low in 235 rounds, a week-low, bogey-free 8-under version at the 2018 RBC Heritage in R2 of his tourney debut. That 63 positioned Kodaira T13 at the Heritage midpoint, four back, and would eventually prevail in a playoff with Si Woo Kim after closing rounds of 70-66. That’s his lone TOUR win to date, coming as a non-member, a pre-tourney 200/1 outright, and a then-46th in the OWGR. The 31-year-old, who checked in off a T19 at the inaugural Palmetto two weeks ago, birdied four in a five-hole stretch on his first half, played holes 1, 2 (hole-out eagle-2 from 81 yards) and 3 in 4-under after making the turn, but stalled out from there with five pars and a lone bogey-4 at 8 (failed scramble). He posted -0.537 SG: Off-the-Tee, 3.337 SG: Approach, 0.364 SG: Around, and 3.849 SG: Putting, No. 1 in SGP at last check.