The most famous back in golf belongs to Tiger Woods, who has had artificial discs inserted in his back. Will Zalatoris hopes that is as far as any comparison between his back and Woods’ back goes.
“When I say it was the easiest recovery compared to what I had to go through in 2023, it was the differences with this (surgery), it was actually solving all of my issues as opposed to kind of taking away some of the issues I had,” said Zalatoris, who will make his first start on the PGA Tour this week at The American Express after herniating two discs at the PGA Championship last May.
Having been in pain since initially injuring his back in 2023, which produced his first back surgery, Zalatoris says he feels completely different returning from last summer’s surgery.
“After the 15th week my surgeon said, hey, have at it. Go play as much as you can, go walk as much as you want, just be smart,” Zalatoris said. “I had some days where we went and played 36 holes, did it back-to-back days, just to try to push myself and just see what the limit was. This is stuff I haven’t been able to do for three years.”
The first big test fort the back was playing the Nedbank Championship on South Africa in December. Zalatoris reported no issues with the back after the tournament, where he finished 15th.
“I wanted to play the next week,” he said. “Any time you leave a golf tournament and you’re feeling like you’re just trending more and more and more by the day I wanted to try to get out as fast as I could.”
Still just 29 with one PGA Tour win and five second-place finishes, including a 2022 playoff loss to Justin Thomas in the PGA Championship and second-place finishes in both the Masters and U.S. Open, Zalatoris’ back issues have limited his play to just 41 starts in the last three years. He believes that will change in 2026 as he plays the tour on a major medical exemption.
“I know that I’m able to play every single week now compared to what I’ve had to do in the past, where I would set a schedule for four weeks and then maybe the third week I would have to pull out and then play the fourth week just to recover,” Zalatoris said. “That’s something that I pushed myself at home as much as I possibly could to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.”
Don’t go there
Asked for his strongest memory from the 2025 victory at The American Express, Sepp Straka was a little sheepish that the memory wasn’t particularly a positive thought or moment. Instead, he was trying to avoid disaster on the par-5 16th hole, the par-5 with the 20-foot-deep bunker. William Mouw had made a 13 on that hole earlier in the week.
“I was struggling with my bunker game last year this week. I avoided the bunkers nicely, so that was good, hid that from my score,” Straka said. “So I just remember on 16, I think I had a four-shot lead, at least a three-shot lead, and my only thought was just do not hit it in that bunker. I went ahead and blocked it right and then laid up a chip and made my bogey and carried on. So probably not the right way to think, but that was definitely my strongest.”
Blades is back
It might take some doing, but Blades Brown, the golfer who made his pro debut at 17 years old in The American Express last year, should be back on the tee at the tournament this year. That’s assuming things go well in his attempt to get to the event. Brown is now a member of the Korn Ferry Tour and played in that tour’s Bahamas Great Abaco Classic, a tournament that ended Wednesday.
That means Brown will have to get on a plane and get to the Coachella Valley in time for his 9:58 a.m. tee time at La Quinta Country Club on Thursday. Other players have done the travel between the two tournaments before. In fact, Hayden Springer, the first alternate for the event, also was in the Bahamas field.
Drama class
Will Zalatoris laughs when it is brought up he was not nominated for a Golden Globe for his cameo appearance in “Happy Gilmore 2.” Zalatoris played a grown version of a blond caddy abused by Adam Sandlaer’s character in the original movie.
“It was funny, because I would say when I was making a pretty big run in 2022 I was getting a little bit of recognition around town. And then it just shows you how small potatoes our world is compared to a massive budget movie,” Zalatoris said. “I would go get coffee and a barista would put ‘Blondie’ on there. Little things like that. So it was an absolute treat. I mean, hanging out with Adam and the guys. Justin Thomas and I did a lot of the filming together, so we were just hanging out the whole time. It was so much fun.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Zalatoris believes disk surgery has him ready to contend on PGA Tour
Reporting by Larry Bohannan, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
