It’s been almost two full years since Will Zalatoris won his only PGA Tour event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship on Aug. 14, 2022.
In the time since, Zalatoris’ career has been stalled by a back issue that sidelined him for part of 2022 and led to surgery in April 2023 that ended his season.
Zalatoris’ return to the tour this year has resulted in some highs and lows, making 12 of 18 cuts, including one runner-up and three top-10 finishes.
He was happy to report Tuesday that he is feeling “awesome” going into the final tournament of the regular season, the Wyndham Championship, which begins Thursday in Greensboro, N.C.
“I played a lot of golf this year,” said Zalatoris, who turns 28 on Aug. 16. “You know, I think it’s been a huge learning year where it’s a little bit of trial and error, some things have gone well, some things haven’t gone according to plan. But I feel awesome, I feel 100 percent.
“I think beforehand I didn’t really know what 100 percent was and now my speed with my longer clubs are back to what they were back in 2022, which is huge for me. I mean, there’s a big advantage to that out here on tour, really being over 180 ball speed.”
His last five outings were a missed cut at the U.S. Open, a T42 at The Travelers Championship on June 23, then a withdrawal from the Rocket Mortgage Open after two rounds and missed cuts at the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship.
He took time off from the tour for the last two weeks, but “probably worked harder than I ever have to get back to the form that I want to play,” he said.
“Things are feeling really good, just so far this year it hasn’t clicked, but I know keep my head down, keep working, it’s going to click at some point,” Zalatoris said.
“Yeah, the back feels great. I think the one thing that I think my surgeons really did a good job of telling me was that the first year your recovery’s going to kind of feel like a stock market where it goes up and down, but the line of best fit is going to hopefully trend up.”
Zalatoris admitted he’s not known for his patience, and not being in contention for tournaments in the past few months has been disappointing to him. But it has also motivated him.
As he has adjusted and adapted his swing, Zalatoris has had to learn to get out of his head and just play golf, to put it simply.
“I think throughout this year I was so hyper-focused on certain mechanics that when I would get into a tournament round, I felt if I hit one bad shot, it would kind of kill the momentum,” he said.
He had swing thoughts — too many, he said — and it slowed his progress.
“I think the changes that I made early on this season were really effective, but my alignment really got off with kind of the new posture,” he said. “I’m a little bit more rounded in my back just to alleviate any of the stress that I have on my lower back. So I think week in, week out, one week I’d be too far left, one week being too far right and if I would try to shape a shot, there was always something it felt like. Felt like I was kind of constantly slapping Band-Aids on things.”
Now he’s back to golf fundamentals.
“Getting back to really playing the game,” he said. “I spent maybe a little bit too much time focusing on the mechanics throughout the season and trying to get to certain positions in my swing to try to fix it, but when you’re not aligned in the right spot, it’s not going to work.”
–Field Level Media