Will Zalatoris

Will Zalatoris has claimed his first-ever tournament win on tour, taking out the FedEx St. Jude Championship in a thrilling duel with Sepp Straka on Monday.

T5 — Adam Scott (-11) T5 — Tony Finau (-11) T5 — Matt Fitzpatrick (-11) T5 — Trey Mullinax (-11) “I feel like my game is in a good enough spot that I wasn’t searching for anything this week. “I get to play four rounds next week.

GERMANTOWN, Tenn. – It's a universal truth that the more you struggle with something, the more whoever holds the cosmic marionette strings upstairs will ...

Perhaps he will zealously protect his lead at this week’s BMW Championship, and win the TOUR Championship, too, becoming the first to win PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year and the FedExCup in consecutive seasons. He needed to find a way to make from close range when he absolutely had to have it, and when he did, after he’d paid homage to Curry, he did it again, and yet a third time. With each close call, with each sit-down with his team to see where he could have done better, he kept coming back to the putting. They switched it up in the second round, Zalatoris calling in his new bag man for reads as he made nearly 105 feet of putts and ranked second in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. (He was 25th for the week.) They did the same for the third and fourth rounds, too, and the playoff. The three times he played the 18th hole – once in regulation, twice in the playoff – he saved par from a fairway bunker, the rough, and deep in the trees. He pumped his fist and hollered, “What are they gonna say now?!” It was a nod to Stephen Curry, who said the same thing after the Golden State Warriors won the most recent NBA title. Gregory said he heard from “about 50 guys who wanted the job.” You can’t play as good as he does and not be a good putter, and to make those down the stretch was pretty awesome. Zalatoris was always going to have to own the moment with the putter to win. I follow the Warriors like crazy and when he said that, it kind of related to kind of my journey so far. “I did say that,” Zalatoris, who grew up in the Bay Area before moving to Dallas, said sheepishly. His eyes welled with tears, and he struggled to speak.

Will Zalatoris' fiancée asked an innocent question during the FedEx St. Jude Championship — and committed a golf no-no.

You can ask the question, and you can be asked it, but tread carefully if you ask a pro golfer what they may be doing on Saturday and Sunday when they’re working on Thursday and Friday in hopes of working more on the weekend. “You know, I think it was honestly just we’re still trying to figure each other out a little bit,” Zalatoris said. Still, he’s without a win, and so, somewhat surprisingly, he split with his longtime caddie, Ryan Goble, between the second and third rounds of last week’s Wyndham Championship as the near-misses continued to pile up. Hours after the conversation, Zalatoris shot a seven-under 63 during Friday’s second round, which tied for the lowest score of the day, and, yes, he moved on to the weekend. On Saturday, Zalatoris shot a five-under 65, and he entered Sunday’s final round two shots back of the lead. You’ve asked the question.

Will Zalatoris is a PGA Tour winner after emerging victorious over Sepp Straka in sudden death at the FedEx St Jude Championship.

15 Aug 2022 Carrying the same shaft from his 4-iron to lob wedge, something of a rarity on Tour, Zalatoris hit 51 of 72 greens in regulation this week. - Zalatoris’ first PGA Tour win continues the strong introduction of Titleist’s new TSR range of drivers that Cam Smith also used to win The Open Championship at St Andrews and Joohyung Kim had in the bag for his maiden win last week.

There were two moments that defined the final playoff hole of Will Zalatoris' maiden PGA Tour victory at the FedEx St Jude Championship, and neither one of ...

The second at the PGA was kind of affirmation that it wasn’t a fluke of a week, and the third one at the US Open gave me that much more belief that I can win a Major, I can win out here.” Zalatoris’ season has been a gutting run of almosts, highlighted by a playoff loss to Justin Thomas at the PGA Championship and a runner-up finish at the US Open after a closing duel with eventual winner Matt Fitzpatrick. It was particularly gratifying that his most clutch shots down the stretch came with the putter, which has long been seen as his greatest weakness. It was Stock who seemed intent on almost forcing his player to the drop zone on the 11th. Today, Stock was in his ear at the most critical time to help him avoid making a bad decision, but throughout the round he managed to keep him calm, at times resorting to what Zalatoris called “dad jokes”. (Example: What’s brown and sticky? As Straka made his way to the drop zone, took an aggressive line on his third shot, and sent it into the back bunker, Zalatoris and his new caddie, Joel Stock, were intently contemplating their next move. It came up well short of the green, and as it bounced eight times along the stone facade separating dry land from the water, it seemed ludicrous to believe that it wouldn’t eventually careen off at the wrong angle and disappear into the beckoning pond.

Coming off of his breakthrough victory in Memphis, Zalatoris is 14-1 to grab another W in Delaware.

Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay and Matthew Fitzpatrick check in next, with World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler also near the top at 16-1. Jason Day, Billy Horschel, Henrik Stenson, Rory McIlroy (again, 2012), Vijay Singh, Camilo Villegas and Tiger Woods all won multiple playoff events, too. Winning PGA Tour events in back-to-back weeks is a seemingly impossible feat, though it's one Tony Finau accomplished no more than two weeks ago.

Will Zalatoris is always available to caddie for Mr. Gilmore, except when he's winning on the PGA Tour.

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Zalatoris' dramatic win, a bad break for Cam Smith, Patrick Reed's bold LIV golf claim, the 25 new PGA Tour members and more from the FedEx Cup playoffs.

The second at the PGA was kind of affirmation that it wasn't a fluke of a week, and the third one at the U.S. Open gave me that much more belief that I can win a major, I can win out here. "At the end of the day when you go out there, you're playing more than just for yourself, that you're part of a team, and we're all motivated to win trophies. When he took a drop, at least part of his ball settled on the red line. "When I asked him the question, unfortunately, he said to me, 'No, the ball was definitely touching the line.' So at that point there's no turning back." He made a 14-footer on No. 18 on the second playoff hole and a 7-footer on No. 11 for his first victory. "I knew I wouldn't have played the shot, but I at least was going to take a peek at it," Zalatoris said. "I'm not going to beat around the bush," Morikawa said at the U.S. Open in June. "I've said it since college, anything outside of that 8- to 10-foot zone, I mean, it's as smooth as anyone else's stroke. "Joel told me about three times, 'Hey, Sepp's got 4 feet for [a bogey], go back, go back.' So I wanted to make sure that I wasn't giving up an easy chance where I could just kind of maybe pop one up on the green and get an easy 2-putt and it was just not doable. At 14th in the Official World Golf Ranking, he was the highest-ranked player without a PGA Tour win. After much discussion with his caddie, Joel Stock, Zalatoris wisely went back to the drop zone and hit a perfect wedge shot onto the green. "We've just got to keep doing what we're doing," Zalatoris said after carding a 7-under 63 in the second round. Golf fans have to wonder whether Will Zalatoris' first victory on Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee, will have a similar effect.

In today's Play Smart column, we're taking a good look at Will Zalatoris' putting performance, and what we can learn from it.

But because his ball-striking and distance putting are so rock-solid, he can glean more of an advantage from the hot putting days when they do arrive. In boasting a high level of consistency from tee-to-green, Zalatoris has situated his game so he is ready to take advantage of the good putting streaks whenever they do come. Short putting is important, obviously, but it’s also just a sliver of what happens on the greens. While it’s worth noting that he’s currently the leader on Tour in putts made from three feet, that’s more of a statistical quirk than anything else (I’ll explain why in a second). The fact remains he ranks 187th on tour in putting between four and eight feet, making about 64 percent of his putts from that range compared with the Tour average of 69 percent. In real terms, that equates to 10 putts over the course of this season that Zalatoris missed which the average PGA Tour player from this range made. It probably speaks to fans’ tendency to generalize and oversimplify that we landed on this conclusion about Zalatoris. Indeed, it’s true that putting isn’t the strength of Zalatoris’ game.

In one weekend, Will Zalatoris notched his maiden victory on the PGA Tour, usurped Scottie Scheffler for the No. 1 spot in the FedExCup Playoff rankings and ...

Meanwhile, Lee Westwood is close to dropping out of the top 100 after falling five spots from No. 93 to No. 98. Almost all the LIV defectors took a slight hit to their ranking, but most notable of the group was Patrick Reed, who competed in an Asian Tour event in order to try and gain some world-ranking points. Meanwhile, Tony Finau took a step back to No. 14 after jumping from No. 16 to No. 13 thanks to back-to-back Tour wins earlier in August. Inside the top 10, the only other movement came from Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele, who swapped places. Dustin Johnson dropped out of the top 20, from No. 18 to No. 21, while rookie Joohyung “Tom” Kim rose two spots to No. 19. U.S. Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick was one of those dominos, dropping out of the top 10 to No. 11.

On the 75th hole of the St. Jude Championship, in the midst of a chaotic playoff against Sepp Straka, on an approach shot that came perilously close to landing ...

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They say it takes a village, and in golf, that village consists of many more stakeholders than just a player and their caddie.

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Will Zalatoris survived a dramatic playoff to win his first PGA Tour event while Cam Smith endured a drama-filled week.

He’ll be primed for a bounce-back week at the BMW – now ninth in the standings, he’s still in prime position to become the first player to win three FedExCup titles. That was significant, because if he opted to resign his membership early – again, totally his choice – he’d open the door for Chris Naegel, Rick Lamb and Anthony Quayle (all barely outside the top 200 in FedExCup points) to gain the last few spots into the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, where another 25 PGA Tour cards would be up for grabs. Positive Signs: Collin Morikawa. It’s been a curious season for Morikawa, who began the year challenging for world No. 1 but has been in such a rut of late that he’s recorded just a single top-25 in his past eight starts. After three weeks off, Morikawa returned with a tie for fifth at the FedEx, renewing hopes that he may have found something to ignite his stagnant game. Well, That Didn’t Work Out: Patrick Reed. One of the chief reasons he said he joined LIV Golf was the opportunity to play less, and yet there was Reed flying halfway around the globe to tee it up in an Asian Tour event in an obvious attempt to earn world-ranking points and solidify his position. In short, it didn’t work: He tied for 31st in Singapore, moving him from 46th in the world to … 49th. Smith apparently took the penalty in stride, but he also didn't talk to the media after the round. The penalty, announced shortly before Smith teed off, left bettors furious, and it also led to more discussion about whether there should be some sort of time limit (an hour or two after play concludes?) for a rule to be enforced. In making his sales pitch to the game’s top players, Norman has been adamant that the Tour could do little to ban them. (Officials determined Smith didn’t take complete relief after dropping on the fourth hole on Saturday.) Though correct, the ruling didn’t sit well for a couple of reasons. Considering all the close finishes that I’ve had this year, to finally pull it off, it means a lot.” His eight top-10s were the most of any player without a title.

Will Zalatoris is one of the best ball strikers on the PGA Tour, and the methods he uses to improve his golf swing are both simple and smart.

The short-term pain of seeing a golf ball fly in an unwanted direction can distract you from your longer-term goal of making a technical change that will leave you better off in the future. Since the moment he arrived on the PGA Tour, you could make a solid case that Will Zalatoris is best ball striker in golf. Often, seeing the golf ball veer off in bad directions can inhibit your ability to make swing change.

It began when Scott Fawcett, a longtime golf coach who has worked through the years with Sunday's St. Jude winner, Will Zalatoris, launched into a vulgar attack ...

“His resilience is a testament to his character and now he’s a winner! And again, F–K YOU DAN,” Fawcett wrote in a third tweet. Fawcett then replied in a final tweet, “Fair enough…I can’t get out of my echo chamber to realize they were all mad I said what I said…and, as you know, I didn’t win anything. In a second tweet, a quote tweet of the earlier one: “Hey, @BradFaxon and Dan…go f–k each other. But go f–k yourself Dan Hicks!!!!!” Fawcett wrote in a since-deleted tweet. “Fax and I do not text. He’s been a rock solid dude through all the noise and I have so much respect for him because of that. “This wouldn’t be a gift, Will has the best speed control on tour so he f–king earned it you d–k.” It was too late, however, as it garnered the attention of Faxon, who tweeted back at him. It was after this that Thomas got involved. Congrats on your ‘win’ but show some class and respect if you are as professional as you claim to be. (Yes this is a joke, but there’s always truth in comedy ;)”