Will Zalatoris

In one of the craziest playoffs in recent PGA Tour memory, Will Zalatoris took advantage of the wildest break of them all to capture his long-awaited first ...

From 152 yards out, Straka stuck his third shot to 7 feet to put the pressure back on his opponent. While Zalatoris opted to punch out, Straka was even more conservative, keeping his shoes on (he’d taken them off briefly while contemplating a stance in the lake) and taking a penalty stroke so he could drop back in the fairway. Straka’s drive hooked hard and nearly into the water before somehow stopping on the bank.

Will Zalatoris claimed victory on the third playoff hole after a few lucky bounces on a rock wall kept his ball dry, while Sepp Straka found water.

Sepp Straka, 29, who snapped a streak of six missed cuts and hadn't played on the weekend since the Memorial in early June, made birdie at the 12th to tie Zalatoris for the lead at 14 under. He lifted his arms to the sky when his putt dropped in. But he vaulted to No. 46 in the points standing and was among the top 70 to advance to the second playoff event at next week's BMW Championship. Eventually, Zalatoris chose to take a penalty stroke, too, and wedged to 7 feet. Zalatoris posted a 65 on Saturday to climb within two strokes of the lead. Ranked No. 14 in the world entering the week, Zalatoris already had a fruitful season, which included eight top-10s, the most among players without a win.

Will Zalatoris, who had the most money and the best world ranking of anyone without a PGA Tour victory, won the FedEx St. Jude Championship without making ...

He birdied the first hole, made only one other birdie, shot 70 and tied for 13th. Straka, already a winner this year in the Honda Classic, narrowly missed a 20-foot birdie putt for the victory on the 18th for a 67. Glover closed with a 66 and wound up in a tie for third. Straka followed with a shot that also hit the bank, took one bounce off the rocks and went into the water. Zalatoris looked to be in trouble from a fairway bunker on the 18th in regulation until he made that 10-footer for par at a 4-under 66. His tee shot hit the bank and then bounced seven times on the rocks before coming to rest.

An otherwise solid, but unremarkable weekend at TPC Southwind ended in the craziest hour of golf in 2022.

The "normal sport" thing is certainly a bit, but it is also true, and the game itself keeps proving it to us. Again, common sense prevailed, and Zalatoris went back to the drop zone where he hit his approach to 7 feet. After trying to cut the corner off the water for the second consecutive hole, his ball took a dangerous bounce and was so close to the liquid that he briefly took off a shoe to see if he could stand in the water and hit his second shot. It would have been a heroic effort, and if he'd gotten it anywhere on the green, he would have had two putts for the win. "It was pretty crazy," said Straka. "This course is where every shot you hit you're on the edge of your seat. Hitting first, just as he had on the first two playoff holes, Zalatoris took his tee shot on the 151-yard par-3 hole way out to the right. Knowing all of this, Straka hit his shot in the same direction but didn't quite get the bounces Zalatoris got. All of this, by the way, was simply an appetizer compared to what happened at the third and final playoff hole. The first playoff hole was fairly standard other than Straka having to hit a 6-foot comebacker for par to keep his hopes alive. Zalatoris blew his tee shot off the planet and nearly out of bounds. He came into the tournament having missed six straight cuts and shot twice as many rounds in the 60s this week (four) as he did on the PGA Tour in May, June and July combined. For four days, the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis unfolded as a solid, if not unremarkable, first event of the 2022 FedEx Cup Playoffs. A handful of stars were involved and the leader heading into Sunday, J.J. Spaun, was eventually ejected from the top of the leaderboard after posting an 8-over par.

Will Zalatoris celebra su putt de par en el hoyo 72 del FedEx St Jude Championship. Todos sabíamos que este día iba a llegar tarde o temprano. Lo que nadie, ni ...

Will Zalatoris defeats Sepp Straka on the third hole of a playoff at the FedEx St. Jude Invitational to win his first PGA Tour title.

— On the first hole of the playoff, Zalatoris hits into the first cut right of the fairway with his tee shot, and Straka hits the fairway. — Straka birdies the 16, and he and Zalatoris are tied for the lead again. — Straka birdies the 389-yard, par-4 12th on a 13-foot putt, and he moves into a share of the lead. — Glover birdies the 489-yard, par-4 17th after hitting his second shot to 6 feet, and he moves into a share of the lead. — Spaun bogeys the 7th after hitting his tee shot into a bunker, and he falls out of the lead. — Zalatoris bogeys the 475-yard, par-4 7th after hitting his tee shot up against a tree, and he falls into a share of the lead. — Spaun birdies the 423-yard, par-4 6th on a 12-foot putt, and he moves to within a shot of the lead. — Zalatoris birdies the 578-yard, par-5 3rd on a 15-foot putt, and he takes a one-shot lead. — Zalatoris birdies his first two holes, and he pulls into a share of the lead. He’s at 13-under, Sepp Straka is at 12-under, Will Zalatoris and Trey Mullinax are at 11-under, and Tyler Duncan and Troy Merritt are at 10-under. From there, Straka hit into the bunker over the green after taking his drop in the drop zone, he hit on with his fourth shot — and Zalatoris, after a long look at his lie, picked his ball up, also went back to the drop and hit to 7 feet. — Chaos! On the second hole of the playoff, Zalatoris hit his tee shot right, it hit the cart path, his ball bounced up into a tree, and it settled feet from the boundary fence — which was followed by Straka’s tee shot, which went left, into the penalty area and feet from water.

Will Zalatoris won the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship in a playoff for his first PGA Tour win.

“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. He vaulted to No. 34 in the points standing and was among the top 70 to advance to the second playoff event at next week’s BMW Championship. “The first second at the Masters was life changing because it put me in position to play out here as much as I wanted to and put me kind of on the map,” Zalatoris said. “I think I’ve always had the attitude of the job’s not done and as great as it is to pull this off, I still feel like I’ve got some unfinished business going forward,” he said. “I couldn’t get the club on the ball,” Zalatoris said. Both Zalatoris, a Wake Forest product, and Straka, a Georgia grad, converted short birdie putts at the par-5 16th to climb to 15 under. Straka, 29, who snapped a streak of six missed cuts and hadn’t played on the weekend since the Memorial in early June, made birdie at the 12th to tie Zalatoris for the lead at 14 under. Zalatoris made a bogey at No. 7 but regained the lead with a birdie at 10. After much deliberation, Zalatoris elected to take a drop, too, rather than risk hitting against the rock retaining wall. Stock served as Zalatoris’s sidekick for the first time since Zalatoris and his longtime caddie, Ryan Goble, parted ways in the middle of last week’s Wyndham Championship. The 25-year-old reigning Tour rookie of the year shot a final-round 4-under 66 at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee, and became the second player to win his first tournament in the playoffs, joining Camilo Villegas, who did so at the 2008 BMW Championship. Ranked No. 14 in the world entering the week, Zalatoris already had a fruitful season, which included eight top-10s, the most among players without a win. “It’s kind of hard to say ‘about time’ when it’s your second year on Tour, but about time,” Zalatoris said.

Will Zalatoris held on in the pressure-cooker circumstances at the FedEx St. Jude Championship to score his first PGA Tour victory Sunday.

Some guys need to be a little bit slower and methodical and I'm a guy that I need to just keep up the rhythm. In the playoff, I think it was more of knowing that I needed to make it to keep it going and I needed to keep my emotions in check because I knew that there was more golf ahead. Like I say, I think the PGA going forward is kind of a new season. ZALATORIS: Yeah, I think the last fall was a pretty rough period for me being hurt through the middle of the season last year. ZALATORIS: I saw him in the right rough and I knew that it was an OK angle. So being that close and then kind of being written off here and there and then obviously finally pulling off, it was — I actually can't believe I said that actually. What did you have to learn about him and what did he have to learn about you? He hit a heck of a shot in there and obviously had to make another putt to keep it going. 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 two-putt and it was just not doable. Q: You had a new guy on the bag, you had Joel on the bag. So the last thing I wanted to do was make one decision that's going to ruin my chances of winning the golf tournament. It was just a matter of time and obviously this was my week.

Adam Sandler, a comedic actor and "Saturday Night Live" alum whose 1996 film "Happy Gilmore" was a lovable lampooning of golf and the people who play it, sent ...

And Zalatoris replied, in character: "If you're ever in need of a caddie again let me know. Happy's happy for you! "Congrats Will! I'm happy for you!

Will Zalatoris had his first full week with new caddie Joel Stock. The pair faced a brutal decision at the peak of the FedEx St. Jude playoff.

“We went back to the drop zone and obviously it paid off,” Zalatoris concluded. And then he buried the putt, dripping it in the middle of the cup to secure the win. Instead he’d assumed Zalatoris had an easy up and down, aimed for the pin himself and found the water en route to 5. But if he attempted the shot and failed, Zalatoris risked bouncing it off the grass lip and back into the water, leading to double bogey or worse. Stock wanted him to head to the drop zone and try to get up and down for bogey and the win. Zalatoris’ ball had bounced some half-dozen times or more, pinballing around a narrow stretch of rock before it came to rest wedged between the collar of the grass and the rock wall separating water from land.

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.