Will Zalatoris on his emotional outburst: "I can't believe I said that..."
Will Zalatoris has explained his passionate reaction to draining a huge putt on the 72nd hole at the FedEx St. Jude Championship en route to his maiden win.
Will Zalatoris says he "can't believe" his outburst on the 72nd green at the FedEx St. Jude Championship en route to his maiden PGA Tour victory but he was just happy he didn't say anything worse.
The 25-year-old finally claimed his first victory on the circuit after 55 starts. Of those starts, he's had multiple top-10s. Sixteen, in fact, and four of those have been runner-up.
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It has resulted in the former Rookie of The Year being dubbed the nearly man in professional golf. It was the same unofficial title Scottie Scheffler, the Word No.1, had before his breakout victory at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
We all know what has happened since then. Surely now, the floodgates will open for Zalatoris. He now has that belief that he can get it done. That he can win. That he absolutely belongs at the top of the game.
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Zalatoris was made to work extremely hard for his victory. His Sunday 66 after rounds of 71-63-65 included an all-time clutch putt at the final green at TPC Southwind in Memphis. He let out a huge roar when that putt dropped, yelling: "What are they gonna say now?!"
Take that, haters.
Some folks on social media pointed out the hilarity of his reaction bearing similarity to that famous clip of bowler Pete Weber winning the U.S. Open in 2012.
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? I AM!
Watch Zalatoris' putt and outburst of emotion here:
Speaking to the media after claiming that thrilling victory in which he broke down in tears into his girlfriend's arms, Zalatoris explained of the putt: "I did say that. Yeah, you know, I'm a big [Golden State] Warriors fan and obviously Steph, he's a Cal club guy, he's a pretty big inspiration obviously.
"I follow the Warriors like crazy and when he said that, it kind of related to kind of my journey so far.
"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. At least it wasn't something worse, but yeah."
Zalatoris held off Sepp Straka over a three-hole playoff. It was box office stuff. Some would argue it was proper golf and not the LIV Golf Invitational Series.
During the playoff Zalatoris saw one of his tee shots land extremely close to the out of bounds fence as his tee shot at the 18th hit the cart path.
He managed to chip out and get up and down to save par. Straka had to take a drop, too, after his golf ball finished perilously close to the water.
Then somehow Zalatoris' golf ball stayed dry at the par-3 11th. His new caddie implored him downright begged him to go back to the drop zone as Straka's tee shot was submerged in the water and he had a putt to make a five with his second ball.
Zalatoris said of this moment: "Yeah, I mean, I knew I wouldn't have played the shot, but I at least was going to take a peek at it. Joel [caddie] told me about three times, 'Hey, Sepp's got four feet for five, go back, go back.'
"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. I couldn't get the club below basically half of the equator of the ball, the lower half of the ball."
