Will Zalatoris

ELIGIBILITY: The first 50 players on the OWGR for Week 21, 2024.]

Zalatoris was born in San Francisco and began to play golf at California Golf Club, pounding endless practice balls. He started taking lessons at age 5 with Greg Copeland at Mariners Point and occasionally took day trips to Pebble Beach to play the par-3 Peter Hay layout. Ken Venturi, the 1964 U.S. Open champion and longtime CBS Sports commentator, spotted Zalatoris on the range when he was 6 or 7 and showed him how to grip the club properly, much like Byron Nelson had fixed Venturi's grip in his youth. Despite moving away from San Francisco, he remains a Golden State Warriors fan, and his MLB loyalty belongs to the San Francisco Giants. But when it comes to the NFL and NHL, Zalatoris is a big Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Stars fan.
His family moved to Dallas when Will was nine, and his father, Rick, took over a major mall renovation. There, the family joined Bent Tree Country Club, and Will found himself in a world of junior golf talent. He played on the local Legends Junior Tour with Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler, and other eventual Division I players and budding pros. When he was 12, he qualified for the 2009 U.S. Junior Amateur, playing his first round of stroke play with current PGA Tour player Patrick Cantlay. Zalatoris shot 71-87 and didn't make it out of stroke play. Five years later, he won the U.S. Junior Amateur and at the time, was just one of seven people to play in five U.S. Junior Amateurs. In 2014, he also won the Texas State Amateur and Trans-Mississippi Championship.
Zalatoris attended Wake Forest on the esteemed Arnold Palmer scholarship, where as a freshman in the 2014-15 season, he won the Bank of Tennessee Intercollegiate. In his sophomore season, he was All-ACC, and honorable mention All-American, winning the Rod Myers Invitational. Zalatoris received an exemption into the PGA Tour's AT&T Byron Nelson Classic and was named to the United States Palmer Cup team. As a junior at Wake Forest in 2017, Zalatoris received multiple honors: ACC Player of the Year, All-ACC, first-team GCAA All-American, first-team Golfweek All-American, Jack Nicklaus Award finalist, and Ben Hogan Award semifinalist. He won the General Hackler Championship and finished under par in nine of 12 events. In 2017, he joined the winning U.S. Walker Cup team at Los Angeles Country Club. In early 2018, Zalatoris turned pro before his final semester at Wake Forest but didn't pass the first stage of Q School for the Korn Ferry Tour. He made six PGA Tour starts, making one cut T-68th at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
2019 Korn Ferry Tour Summary: Tournaments Entered - 15; Rounds Played - 51; In Money - 11; Top-10 Finishes - 3; Scoring Average - 70.04 (Rank 23rd); Regular Season Money - $101,287 (Rank 59th); Priority Rank - 70th; Best Finish - T-3rd, LECOM Health Challenge. The LECOM Health Challenge finish earned Zalatoris status on the Korn Ferry Tour. That year on the Korn Ferry Tour, his ball striking was strong. He was 3rd in greens in regulation but was poor in putting, ranking 146th in putting average. He switched to the arm-lock approach Bryson DeChambeau and fellow Wake Forest alum Webb Simpson used and finally found a stroke he believed in. Zalatoris also worked with swing coach Troy Denton and short-game coach Josh Gregory, refining his game and using ideas that combine strokes-gained data with course management. With that, his game was propelled in 2020.
2020 Korn Ferry Tour Summary: Tournaments Entered - 16; Rounds Played - 64; In Money - 16; Top-10 Finishes - 10; Scoring Average - 68.44 (Rank 1st); Regular Season Money - $403,978 (Rank 14th); Priority Rank - 27th; Best Finish - Win TPC Colorado Championship.
He played on the Korn Ferry Tour, in his first start of the season, was T-4th at the Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay, five shots back of winner Tommy Gainey. Coming back from the break, his season became nearly flawless. In 11 Korn Ferry Tour starts before the U.S. Open, won the TPC Colorado Championship by a shot over Chase Johnson. He was T-2nd at the Evans Scholars Invitational, a shot back of winner Curtis Thompson. He was T-3rd at the King & Bear Classic, three shots back of winner Chris Kirk. He was 4th at the Utah Championship, a shot back of the Kyle Jones/Paul Harley/Daniel Summerhays playoff, and T-5th at the TPC San Antonio Championship at the Oaks and Nationwide Children's. He was 6th at WinCo Foods Portland Open and Korn Ferry Challenge. While standing first on the Korn Ferry Tour Point list, Zalatoris qualified for the U.S. Open, where he finished T-6th, 11 shots back of winner Bryson DeChambeau at Winged Foot. One of the highlights of his week, Will made a hole-in-one at the seventh hole in the first round, the first ace of his PGA Tour career. With the top 10, he earned a spot in the following week's Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. Zalatoris made the cut on the number at Corales and went on to shoot 65 in the final round, which lifted him to T-8th. That got him into the Sanderson Farms Championship, but he missed the cut. He was given a sponsor exemption into the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and finished T-5th, four shots back of the Martin Laird/Austin Cook/Matthew Wolff playoff. That top-10 got him into the Bermuda Championship, and when he finished T-16th, it earned him a special temporary membership on the PGA Tour. With this, he earned non-member FedExCup points and was a shoo-in to make his PGA Tour card for 2022. To show how dramatic his rise was, at the start of 2019, Zalatoris was 2,006th in the Official World Golf Ranking. At the beginning of 2020, Zalatoris was 672nd, and with his finish at the U.S. Open climbed to 76th. At the end of the year was 59th and broke into the top 50 with his T-17th finish at the WM Phoenix Open in February. With the Korn Ferry Tour going to a two-year season in 2020-21, Zalatoris remained technically a member of that Tour, though he was playing on the PGA Tour.
2021 Notes: Played in 25 PGA Tour events, making 21 cuts with eight top-ten finishes. Because he wasn't a full member of the PGA Tour did not qualify for FedExCup Points. He started the PGA Tour season with a T-6th at the U.S. Open, was T-8th at Corales, and T-5th at the Shriners Hospitals For Children Open. He was T-7th at the Farmers Insurance Open, finishing six shots back of winner Patrick Reed. He was T-10th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Zalatoris climbed enough in the Official World Golf Ranking to play at the WGC-Workday Championship (T-22nd) and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. He also earned a spot in the Players Championship (finished 21st). Zalatoris didn't make it out of group play at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, but he ended up ranked 45th in the world and got a Masters invitation. He finished 2nd in his debut at the Masters, earning his first top-two finish on the PGA Tour. He was the only player in the field to record under-par scores in all four rounds (70-68-71-70). He finished T-8th at the PGA Championship, his third top-10 in his fourth major championship appearance. Was T-8th at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, four shots back of the Ancer/Burns/Matsuyama playoff. He ended his season T-29th at the Wyndham Championship.
2022 Notes: Played in 24 PGA Tour events, making 19 cuts with nine top-ten finishes. He was 30th on the FedExCup points list. He was T-6th at the American Express, four shots back of winner Hudson Swafford. He lost to Luke List in a playoff at the Farmers Insurance Open, earning his second career runner-up on the PGA Tour in his 40th start. He held a share of the lead after the third round, his first career 54-hole lead/co-lead on Tour, before shooting a 1-under 71. Marked his first playoff appearance on Tour. At the WGC-Dell Match Play, he won his group by beating Viktor Hovland in a playoff. In the round of 16 beat Kevin Na but lost to Kevin Kisner 4 & 3 in the quarterfinals to finish T-5th. Shot a final-round 67 to finish T-6th at the Masters and was T-4th at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with partner Davis Riley. At the PGA Championship, shot a final-round 71 and was tied after regulation with Justin Thomas. Despite being one-under in the three-hole playoff, he lost to Thomas's two-under. He was T-5th at the Memorial Tournament, seven shots back of winner Billy Horschel. Finished runner-up in his second consecutive major at the U.S. Open at the Country Club, he was a shot back of winner Matt Fitzpatrick. He now has been runner-up in three of the four majors, the only one left is the Open Championship. He was T-28th at the British Open, and in ten major starts, he has six top-eight finishes. He got his first PGA Tour victory in his 56th PGA Tour start at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He did it in a three-hole playoff over Sepp Straka, despite a bogey on the third hole, becoming the first player since Sean O'Hair at the 2011 RBC Canadian Open to win a sudden-death playoff with a bogey. At the next stop, the BMW Championship, Zalatoris tweaked his back during the third round and with the pain not subsiding, was forced to withdraw. Zalatoris's season was over. He couldn't make another start and finished 30th in the FedExCup standings because of the injury. He suffered two herniated discs in his back and was told he had to rest the injury. He couldn't play in the Presidents Cup, and what he thought would be 12 weeks turned into a four-month wait. Zalatoris explained the issue as more of a motor pattern problem, not structural. So Zalatoris consulted with Dr. Greg Rose at the Titleist Performance Institute to evaluate how he swung and make necessary changes to ensure it wouldn't happen again. He had to make changes so that he wouldn't push off his right side and make more of a turn than a lateral shift. He also changed his driver to shorten it by an inch and a quarter, which helped him turn more. Zalatoris had suffered back pain problems for the past two years, and the hope was that the new regimen would end the back problems. Zalatoris started hitting balls and playing on December 1st, making the changes. Zalatoris felt he could take the injury and turn it into a positive. His minor swing changes and the shortened driver have turned into more clubhead speed. With the time off, Zalatoris could relax, and in December, he married his college sweetheart Caitlin, and Kapalua would be their honeymoon.
2023 Notes: The Sentry Tournament of Champions was his first event in 138 days, and he finished T-11th with an 8-under 65 in the final round. He took a week off and returned to the American Express, finishing T-36th. He shot a final round 64 to finish 4th at the Genesis Invitational, four shots back of winner Jon Rahm. At the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, he lost to Andrew Putnam 3 & 2, then lost to Harris English 5 & 3 and conceded his match to Ryan Fox, saying he was ill. Doctors had told him he wouldn't be 100 percent until the Masters. He got together with his doctors, and they reevaluated his situation. He withdrew from the Masters, and during that week, Zalatoris had a microdiscectomy, a surgical procedure to relieve the pain caused when a herniated disc in the spine presses on an adjacent nerve. It was the same surgery Tiger Wood underwent. Zalatoris said that the surgery was made after "Careful consideration" and seeking multiple opinions. "As much as I hate not being able to play the rest of this season, I am happy that I am already seeing the benefits of the procedure," he wrote in a social media post. "Playing and living in pain is not fun." So, with all this time on his hands, since he was shut down for the rest of the season, he decided to return to Wake Forest. He left the school a semester early to start his golf career and promised his parents that he'd graduate. In August, he finished up the requirements to get his psychology major. At the same time, he went through a thorough rehabilitation process and, in August, started to chip and putt. He worked his way up to hitting golf balls and hoping by mid-September, when he is completely out of the rehab protocol, to start playing again with the hope of playing a couple of fall events before returning full-time to the PGA Tour in January. He made his first start at the Hero World Challenge and finished 20th (dead last).
2024 Notes: He finished T-2nd at The Genesis Invitational, three shots back of the winner, Hideki Matsuyama. It was his first top-10 on TOUR since undergoing back surgery in April 2023, and it marked his second consecutive top-10 at the event. Was T-4th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He was T-9th at the Masters. Unfortunately, his back flared up, and he withdrew from the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. Zalatoris withdrew during the third round of the Rocket Mortgage Classic, playing eight holes on Saturday before heading to the clubhouse. PGA Tour Communications posted on X that Zalatoris withdrew because of a back injury. CBS? Amanda Balionis, however, reported that Zalatoris told her he felt a ?pop? in his hip.