Will Zalatoris, the best iron player in the game, rides hot putter to first-round 66 at PGA Championship

TULSA, Okla. – Aside from Jack Nicklaus, comparing any golfer to Tiger Woods is risky business. Still, Will Zalatoris arrived at Southern Hills Country Club ahead of the 2022 PGA Championship having something in common with the 15-time major winner.

When Woods won the 2007 PGA Championship on these rolling, sunbaked fairways, he arrived in Tulsa ranked No. 1 in Strokes Gained: Approach the green. He was the best iron player on tour.

This week it’s Zalatoris, 25, who holds that distinction.

The former Wake Forest standout, who was the runner-up at the 2021 Masters even though he was not an official PGA Tour member yet, seems to hit everything dead center in the face of every club he swings. His iron shots make a sizzling sound as they zip through the air. But on Thursday, Zalatoris’s putter helped him shoot an opening-round 66, a score that was good enough to leave himself just one shot behind the early leader, Rory McIlroy.

Statistically, Zalatoris is one of the worst putters on the PGA Tour, but he made four birdie putts from over 23 feet and over 150 total feet in putts on Thursday.

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“It was kind of a bizarre day,” Zalatoris said with a grin after signing his card. “I didn’t drive it great early, and then drove it nicely at the end, but I think all six of my birdies came from the rough today, which is just very bizarre.”

Whether he is playing Southern Hills, Augusta National or TPC Sawgrass, Zalatoris’s formula for success remains the same. He uses his iron game to set up lots of birdie chances and help him avoid carding big numbers. When he makes putts, he contends. If his putter is cold, as it has been for most of the 2021-22 PGA Tour season, he makes cuts but doesn’t threaten the leaders. Putting is something that he’s been trying to fix for months.

“I got into some bad habits. I tend to tilt too far, kind of towards my back foot, and start seeing my lines right, which is just for some reason [something that] I’ve just always done,” Zalatoris explained. “I do it in my full swing, I do it in my short game, I do it in my putting. Sometimes looking at video is actually a little bit better than just digging it out of the dirt and banging your head against the wall.”

Thursday, Zalatoris hit 15 or 18 greens in regulation, which you might expect for the player who ranks ninth on the PGA Tour in greens in regulation. But then he made an 8-foot birdie on 10 (his first hole of the day), a 23-foot birdie putt on 12, a 26-footer on 14 for birdie, another 8-foot birdie putt on the third and a 24-footer on the seventh hole.

After hitting his tee shot to the 249-yard par-3 eighth hole long, and nearly having it roll into the out of bounds area, Zalatoris hit a flop shot from 70 feet away to 6 feet and then rolled in a big par-saving putt.

On his last hole, the ninth, Zalatoris rolled in a 30-footer for his sixth birdie of the day and his 66.

“You’ve got to ballstrike your way around [major championships], no matter which major it is. Even at Augusta, where the greens are incredibly undulating, you can put yourself in some pretty good spots and that’s where you’re going to get your best looks,” Zalatoris said. “I thought being the ballstriker I am, obviously it’s shown in the first six or so majors of my career, but on top of that, I think it’s the attitude of this is what I’ve wanted to achieve basically since I was a little kid, and it’s kind of freeing in a way.”

The question that time is going to answer is can Zalatoris make enough putts to stay near the top of the leaderboard and win his first major championship.

“Obviously it’s Thursday. My mind is nowhere near going to be meandering towards that,” he said, knowing how much work under the hot Oklahoma sun lies ahead. “But that’s kind of my general attitude, you get four of these a year, they’re special, and I don’t want to leave anything to chance.”