At the 2023 Masters in Augusta, there were four withdrawals. Kevin Na of Diamond Bar, California withdrew because of illness, 15-time major champion Tiger Woods of Cypress, California withdrew because of a foot problem, 2010 British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen of Mossel Bay, South Africa withdrew because of an undisclosed injury, and rising American star Will Zalatoris withdrew because of a back injury.
Just how serious was Zalatoris’s back problem? Well, according to Patricia Duffy of Golf Channel on Monday, Zalatoris’s injury was so serious, he had back surgery on Saturday and will be out for the rest of the 2023 golf season. The precise procedure was a microdiscectomy, which was a form of surgery to help fix a ruptured disc. It is a procedure Woods has reportedly had four times in the last 10 years.
Zalatoris only has one PGA Tour win. That came at the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, where he shot a four round score of -15 and beat Austria’s Sepp Straka in a three-hole playoff.
However, it is Zalatoris’s play in the major championships that deserve high praise. Already at age 26, he has three second place finishes in the premier events in golf. Zalatoris was one stroke back of Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama at the 2021 Masters after shooting a four round score of -9, lost in a playoff to American Justin Thomas at the 2022 PGA Championship, and then shot a four round score of -5 before losing to England’s Matt Fitzpatrick by a stroke at the 2022 United States Open.
There is no doubt that Zalatoris has delivered a lot of memories to golf fans already as a PGA Tour player. What has been your biggest memory?
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