Will Zalatoris will miss even more time due to his lingering back injury.
Zalatoris revealed on Wednesday at the media day for the PGA Tour’s Austin Championship that he will undergo a spinal-fusion surgery late next month. That means that Zalatoris will miss the entire 2027 campaign.
It marks the third major back surgery Zalatoris has undergone since 2023.
“I’ve been through four years of hell, so it’s good to have something that will hopefully correct it,” Zalatoris said, via Golf.com. “It’s not something you want to do, but when you have three Tour physical therapists tell you it needs to be done at some time, you go ahead and do it.”
Zalatoris missed several months during the 2022 campaign due to two herniated discs in his back. Then, just before the Masters the following spring, he withdrew and underwent surgery on his back. That ended the 2023 campaign.
The injury has essentially lingered ever since. He said that he hurt his back again playing in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open.
He recovered after his most recent back surgery last year and appeared in four events this season, but missed the cut in two of them and then finished T67 at the Valero Texas Open. He’s not played competitively since.
Zalatoris was once a very promising golfer on Tour. He picked up his inaugural win at the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship, and he finished in second at the Masters in 2021. Zalatoris had a stretch in which he finished in the top 10 in six of seven major championships, including a playoff loss at the PGA Championship in 2022 and a T2 run at the U.S. Open a month later.
But Zalatoris has missed the cut in his last four major championship outings, and has only played in 15 tournaments over the past two seasons. He’s plummeted to No. 610 in the Official World Golf Rankings, too.
While Zalatoris will play in Austin, that’ll be it until 2028. Hopefully by then, he said, he’ll be in a much better spot.
“It’s all connected together, and I just want to get it fixed,” he said. “I can’t promise anybody anything because of what I’ve been through. I’m the oldest 30-year-old you will ever meet.”