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 The FedEx St. Jude Championship, founded as the Westchester Classic in 1967, is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour. Since 2007, it has been played as the first tournament of the playoff system for the FedEx Cup, with the field limit ...

. 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 List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, 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 So ...

, and was named

ACC ACC most often refers to: * Atlantic Coast Conference, an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference located in the US *American College of Cardiology, A US-based nonprofit medical association that bestows credentials upon cardiovascular spec ...

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 golfers in two teams: United States, and Great Britain and Ireland. The official name is the Walker Cup Match (not "Matches" as in Ryder Cup Matches). It is ...

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 ser ...

, 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 Cameron Mackray Champ (born June 15, 1995) is an American professional golfer from Sacramento, California. College career For the Texas A&M Aggies he won the OFCC/Fighting Illini Invitational and finished in the top 10 of six other tournaments ...

. 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 A Monday qualifier is a stroke play golf tournament held on the Monday before a professional golf tournament that awards top finishers entry into the professional tournament. Those who enter the Monday qualifiers are those with no status on the tou ...

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 The LECOM Health Challenge was a golf tournament on the Korn Ferry Tour. It was first played in July 2016 on the Upper Course of Peek'n Peak Resort in Findley Lake, New York, which had previously hosted the Peek'n Peak Classic The Peek'n Peak ...

, 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 impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

, when he narrowly won the

TPC Colorado Championship The Ascendant is a golf tournament on the Korn Ferry Tour. Formerly known as the TPC Colorado Championship at Heron Lakes, it was first played in July 2019 in Berthoud, Colorado The Town of Berthoud is a Statutory Town located in Larimer and ...

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. 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 scor ...

; 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 The Corales Puntacana Championship is a golf tournament in the Dominican Republic on the PGA Tour, formerly on the Web.com Tour. It was first played in 2016 at the Puntacana Resort and Club, on the east coast in the province. After two years ...

, and secured Special Temporary Member status after the

Bermuda Championship The Butterfield Bermuda Championship is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour that debuted in October/November 2019 as part of the 2020 season. The tournament is played at the Port Royal Golf Course, designed by Robert Trent Jones, in S ...

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 car ...

, 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 ...

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 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 ...

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 with ...

. 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 Sc ...

at the U.S. Open behind

Matt Fitzpatrick Matthew Thomas Fitzpatrick (born 1 September 1994) is an English professional golfer. After winning the 2013 U.S. Amateur, he later won his first professional tournament at the 2015 British Masters. In 2022 he won his first major championship ...

The Country Club The Country Club, located in Brookline, Massachusetts, is the oldest golf-oriented country club in the United States. (The Philadelphia Cricket Club, founded in 1854, was the first country club for any sport.) It holds an important place in ...

Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...

. On August 14, 2022, Zalatoris won his first PGA Tour event, winning the

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 seat of 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 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

on the third playoff hole against

Sepp Straka Josef "Sepp" Straka (born 1 May 1993) is an Austrian professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour, where he has won twice. Personal life Straka was born in Vienna, Austria, to an American mother and an Austrian father. His family moved to Vald ...

. The event was the first of three events in the 2022 FedEx Cup Playoffs, 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 The Pacific Coast Amateur is an annual amateur golf tournament. It has been played since 1967 and is organized by the Pacific Coast Golf Association. It is held in various locations in the United States and Canada. In December 2021, the Pacific Co ...

*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 The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

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 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

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 The Spirit International Amateur Golf Championship is a biennial amateur golf tournament which takes place in alternating years with the World Amateur Team Championships. The competition consists 20 countries represented by teams of four (two men a ...

: 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