Will Zalatoris called it a golfer’s worst nightmare.
He was warming up on the range at Augusta National last April when his back gave out 30 minutes before his first-round tee time at the Masters. Zalatoris had been battling two herniated discs in his lower back, injuries that forced him to withdraw halfway through last year’s BMW Championship and skip that season’s Tour Championship as well, but this time was different.
A couple days after his Masters withdrawal, Zalatoris was undergoing a microdiscectomy.
“It’s a big swing of emotions,” the 27-year-old Zalatoris recalls.
Zalatoris makes his competitive return at this week’s Hero World Challenge, his first start since the WGC-Dell Match Play in March, after a long and prudent path back from the disabled list.
“It’s been an interesting seven months,” Zalatoris said. “It’s been a patience game. It’s been a grind. You know, I had a lot of really good advice from guys that have had to go through the same thing, and all of them said take your time, no one’s ever come back from an injury taking too long.”
Zalatoris believes his back troubles stem from a shot he hit from the thick fescue during his first round of the 2021 Open Championship at Royal St. George’s, where he withdrew after 18 holes. His “hyperdynamic” golf swing – left heel coming off the ground, huge reverse-C, lots of X-factor – didn’t help matters, either. When Zalatoris re-injured his back at the BMW, though, Zalatoris’ surgeon, Michael Duffy at Texas Back Institute, didn’t recommended surgery at the time. Neither did the over 20 other specialists who reviewed Zalatoris’ MRI results.
“I was basically asked by my surgeon,” Zalatoris recalls, “he said, ‘Look, there’s two routes you can take; you can either do your surgery or you can do a couple shots and do some rehab and take the prudent route.’ … But no surgeon wants to go in and do back surgery on someone that’s 26.”
Zalatoris opted for the latter, but when he returned in January at Kapalua, he wasn’t 100%. A few months later, Zalatoris reckons he’s one of the only people to wake up from back surgery and have a better range of motion. He just had to get his stability back, a process, doctors told him, that could take an additional 12 weeks after the initial three-month recovery.
“I think the first five, six weeks was probably the hardest,” Zalatoris said. “… It was just such a slow build-up.”
Not able to even pick up his dogs for the first few months of post-op, Zalatoris chose to go back to school and take the remaining couple of elective courses toward his degree at Wake Forest, which he left midways through his senior year to turn pro. Zalatoris chuckles when he talks about having to do his resumé and create a LinkedIn page for class. Zalatoris and his wife, Caitlin, took a few bucket-list trips, too, including to Wimbledon this summer.
When Zalatoris was cleared to start practicing a few months into his rehab, he and his instructor, Troy Denton, knew they had to adjust Zalatoris’ swing to take some pressure off his back.
“The last thing I wanted to do was change anything,” said Zalatoris, the Tour’s leader in strokes gained approach two seasons ago.
Yet, Zalatoris shows up this week at Albany with a more rotational motion, one that’s cost him about 10 yards but also has straightened out his driver. Zalatoris added that his ball speed high on Monday (178 mph) wasn’t too far behind his pre-surgery bests (low-180s).
Zalatoris also shared that he was on a strict ball count for the first few weeks, which proved especially frustrating after he shot 63-65-64 over three consecutive days at Brook Hollow in Dallas. Zalatoris, not allowed to play four days in a row, sadly did something else that fourth day.
“Trust me, Zalatoris said, “between my surgeon and my wife making sure that I did everything to a ‘T,’ I was definitely doing everything exactly as I was told.”
Except when he didn’t. Zalatoris was cleared to play the RSM Classic a few weeks ago. “My doctor actually really wanted me to,” Zalatoris said. But the timing didn’t feel quite right, so he held off.
“When I saw the rain delays, that made me pretty happy I didn’t play,” Zalatoris added.
Remaining prudent, Zalatoris still takes several precautions these days:
There’s the swing changes.
He also doesn’t carry a backpack when he travels.
Oh, and sitting on barstools? “Pretty harsh on your discs,” Zalatoris said.
When it comes to hitting the golf ball, though, there can be no hesitation, which is why this week is such an important barometer.
“I think this week is a lot of almost kind of R&D with let’s see how I feel going into the last round physically,” Zalatoris said. “You know, this week I’m going to be able to take a lot away from it regardless of how I play.”