William Patrick Zalatoris (born August 16, 1996) is an American professional golfer. He has competed primarily on the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

, where he has won once, at the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship . He also has three runner-up finishes in major championships.

College career

Zalatoris was born in San Francisco, California. Representing Trinity Christian Academy in Addison, a suburb of

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County wi ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by b ...

, Zalatoris won the U.S. Junior Amateur title in 2014. He attended

Wake Forest University Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the un ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and S ...

, and was named ACC Player of the Year in 2017. In his junior year, Zalatoris was named All-ACC, First-Team GCAA All-American, First-Team Golf week All-American, Nicklaus Award finalist, Hogan Award semifinalist, played in all 12 events and had a scoring average of 70.14, third-best season average in school history. He was also a member of the U.S.

Walker Cup The Walker Cup is a golf trophy contested in odd-numbered years by leading male amateur sports, amateur golfers in two teams: United States, and United Kingdom, Great Britain and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The official name is the Walker Cup M ...

team in

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a se ...

, teammates with future PGA Tour winners

Collin Morikawa Collin Morikawa (born February 6, 1997) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and European Tour. He began his PGA Tour career with 22 consecutive made cuts, second only to Tiger Woods' 25-cut streak. Morikawa has five PGA ...

and Cameron Champ. He left school after his junior year to turn professional.

Professional career

Zalatoris turned professional in 2018 but failed to make it past First Stage of the

Korn Ferry Tour The Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental tour for the U.S.-based PGA Tour, and features professional golfers who have either not yet reached the PGA Tour, or who have done so but then failed to win enough FedEx Cup points to stay at that level. Th ...

Q School. With no status in 2019, Zalatoris relied on Monday qualifying and sponsor exemptions to play in Korn Ferry Tour events. He secured membership for the remainder of the season on July 7 after a tie for third at the LECOM Health Challenge, and finished the regular season 60th in points, earning full status for the 2020 season. Zalatoris' first professional victory came in July

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in ...

, when he narrowly won the TPC Colorado Championship by one stroke. The win moved him to the leader on the Korn Ferry Tour points list and qualified him for the U.S. Open at

Winged Foot Winged Foot Golf Club is a private golf club in the northeastern United States, located in Mamaroneck, New York, a suburb northeast of New York City. The club was founded in 1921, by a group largely made up of members of The New York Athletic Cl ...

. At the U.S. Open, he aced the par-3 seventh hole during the first round, very nearly replicating it six holes later, and tied for sixth place, at five-over par, alongside world number one

Dustin Johnson Dustin Hunter Johnson (born June 22, 1984) is an American professional golfer. He has won two major championships, the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club with a 4-under-par score of 276 and the 2020 Masters Tournament with a record score ...

; it was his first top-10 finish in a major championship. He followed it up with a T8 at the Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship, and secured Special Temporary Member status after the Bermuda Championship in early November. In April 2021, Zalatoris was second in the

Masters Tournament The Masters Tournament (usually referred to as simply The Masters, or the U.S. Masters outside North America) is one of the four major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week of April, the Masters is the first maj ...

with a score of 9-under-par, finishing one stroke behind champion

Hideki Matsuyama is a Japanese professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour. He is the first-ever Japanese professional golfer to win a men's major golf championship the 2021 Masters Tournament. As of January 2022, Matsuyama has 17 worldwide wins, eight ...

, the first male Japanese player to win a major. Zalatoris was voted

PGA Tour Rookie of the Year The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

for the 2020–21 season. In October 2021, Zalatoris shot his career low round (61) on the PGA Tour at the

Sanderson Farms Championship The Sanderson Farms Championship is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour, played annually in Mississippi. It moved to the Country Club of Jackson in Jackson in autumn 2014, early in the 2015 season. The tournament has been part of the ...

in Jackson, Mississippi. In January 2022, Zalatoris tied for the lead of the

Farmers Insurance Open The Farmers Insurance Open is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour, played in the San Diego, California, area in the early part of the season known as the "West Coast Swing". The tournament was noted for having singer-actor Andy William ...

after 72 holes. He lost a sudden-death playoff to Luke List when List hit his approach shot to a foot away from the first playoff hole and made birdie. In May 2022, Zalatoris finished second in a major championship for the second time. He lost to

Justin Thomas Justin Louis Thomas (born April 29, 1993) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and is former World Number One. In 2017, Thomas experienced a breakout year, winning five PGA Tour events and the FedEx Cup championship. H ...

in a playoff in the

PGA Championship The PGA Championship (often referred to as the US PGA Championship or USPGA outside the United States) is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It is one of the four men's major championships i ...

at Southern Hills in

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region wit ...

. In June 2022, Zalatoris had another second place in a major championship. He finished tied with

Scottie Scheffler Scott Alexander Scheffler (born June 21, 1996) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour. From March to October 2022, he was World Number 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking. He won the 2022 Masters Tournament. Early life S ...

at the U.S. Open behind Matt Fitzpatrick at The Country Club in

Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Allston, Fenway–Kenmore, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and West ...

. On August 14, 2022, Zalatoris won his first PGA Tour event, winning the FedEx St. Jude Championship at

TPC Southwind TPC Southwind is a private golf club in Shelby County, Tennessee, southern United States, located within the gated community of Southwind in Southeast Memphis. East-southeast of central Memphis, the 18-hole championship golf course was designed ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the County seat, seat of Shelby County, Tennessee, Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 Uni ...

on the third playoff hole against Sepp Straka. The event was the first of three events in the

2022 FedEx Cup Playoffs The 2022 FedEx Cup Playoffs, the series of three golf tournaments that determined the 2021–22 season champion on the U.S.-based PGA Tour, was played from August 11–28. It included the following three events: * FedEx St. Jude Championship – ...

, With his win, Zalatoris moved to first in the FedEx Cup standings ahead of

Amateur wins

*2014 U.S. Junior Amateur *2016

Trans-Mississippi Amateur The Trans-Mississippi Amateur or Trans-Miss Amateur is an annual amateur golf tournament. It is organized by the Trans-Mississippi Golf Association and was first played in 1901. It is played at a different course each year that are located near or ...

, Pacific Coast Amateur *2017 General Hackler Championship, Rod Myers Invitational Source:

Professional wins (2)

PGA Tour wins (1)

PGA Tour playoff record (1–2)

Korn Ferry Tour wins (1)

Playoff record

European Tour playoff record (0–1)

Results in major championships

''Results not in chronological order before 2019 and in 2020.'' CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
WD = withdrew
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic

Summary

*Most consecutive cuts made – 4 (2022 Masters - 2022 Open Championship, current) *Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (twice)

Results in The Players Championship

"T" indicates a tie for a place

Results in World Golf Championships

¹Canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = Tied
NT = No tournament
Note that the Championship and Invitational were discontinued from 2022.

U.S. national team appearances

Amateur * The Spirit International Amateur Golf Championship: 2015 (winners) *

Arnold Palmer Cup The Arnold Palmer Cup is an annual team golf competition for college/university golfers. From 2018 it has been contested between a United States team and an International team representing the rest of the world. The teams consist of 12 men and 12 ...

: 2016 *

(winners)

References

External links

* *
Wake Forest University Athletics
– Will Zalatoris {{DEFAULTSORT:Zalatoris, Will American male golfers PGA Tour golfers Wake Forest Demon Deacons men's golfers Golfers from San Francisco Golfers from Texas Sportspeople from Plano, Texas 1996 births Living people