One of golf's brightest stars returns. In May, he wondered if he was finished

Will Zalatoris can act. 

He says he couldn't - "never been in a drama class in my life" - but there he was over the summer, the ball-and-stick golfer doing slapstick in a cameo for the "Happy Gilmore" sequel. He had a few lines. He choked a guy. He got tackled. Forget the green jacket. Give him the Golden Globe. 

But did you see him in the 2022 U.S. Open?

That's a tournament, of course. But Zalatoris' best work came there. Entering the final day tied for the lead, he received the entering-the-final-day-tied-for-the-lead intro, where, to set the mood, at-home viewers watch contenders wheeling cars into parking spaces, contenders unloading trunks and contenders swaggering to the clubhouse as music plays and analysts analyze. And there was Zalatoris. 

Masking a limp. Pretending he was OK. 

"The second your car pulls in, you have a camera right there once you get out," he said. "And I remember trying to hide kind of my limp heading into the last round. Just because of how stiff I was and how locked up my back was. 

"And I was still able to go out and possibly win a major."

Four years ago, he nearly did, but a 15-footer that would've tied him for the 72nd-hole lead brushed past the cup's left side, and Matt Fitzpatrick was your winner. But what if Zalatoris hadn't been hurt? What if his back cooperated? Or at least not crippled him? We obviously can't know that. But we could learn soon what a healthy Zalatoris could look like. The '22 Open foreshadowed more pain to come. There've been surgeries. Plural. There've been withdrawals. Plural. There've been returns. Plural. The latest comes Thursday, when Zalatoris tees off at the American Express tournament, his second start since undergoing a procedure last May, and his first on the PGA Tour. 

He's hopeful, as he had been previously, but this time feels different, since it physically is. His surgery seven months ago was a full disc replacement; a 2023 procedure was a microdiscectomy after he'd herniated two discs. Put another way, Zalatoris said he believes the latest work solves all of his issues, rather than taking away only some of them. But new discs? Sounds unsettling. He's just 29, too. That seems like a lot of opening and closing to be performed before 30. But Zalatoris said he knew the operation had been done on others - "finally I said, look, let’s go for it, we’ve got the technology, we’ve been putting it in long-drive guys, we’ve been putting it in hockey players, it’s been saving guys’ careers," he said - and a week after he missed the cut last May at the PGA Championship, the work was done. 

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Eight weeks later, he was putting. 

A couple weeks after that, he was chipping.

Fifteen weeks in, his doctor told him to play. 

Now, Zalatoris can't stop. Thirty-six? Back-to-back days of 36? Gym work? All of the above. And all good.  

"I’m able to do the things that I haven’t been able to do for years," he said. "So I know that’s kind of a weird thing to say at 29 years old, but obviously you know what I’ve been through for the last three, four, five years."

By no means was his play poor over that stretch, though. Over 10 majors from 2020 through 2022, Zalatoris was a player, securing six top 10 finishes, including the '22 U.S. Open runner-up and two others. He was the 2021 PGA Tour rookie of the year. Then, in August of 2022, he won his first PGA Tour event, and he led both the PGA Tour's season-long points race and the DP World Tour's. But stops-and-gos followed. "Everything kind of from there turned into, can you play, can you get by?" he said. A week after his victory, he withdrew from the BMW Championship because of his back, then he WD'd at the 2023 Masters and underwent his microdiscectomy before returning at the end of that year - and playing about a year and a half until he underwent his latest procedure.  

Doubt came at that point, he said. 

He wondered whether he could continue. 

"Is this something - even though the surgeon says, hey, I’m not going to see you for 20 years - is this true?" Zalatoris said. "The little things that of course always creep into your mind. …

"The mental side of it was very tough. Leaving the PGA not knowing if that was going to be my last professional golf tournament, given all the issues that I had had. But I would say that it only just gives you more appreciation when you come back out here."

In his latest time away, he said he's reworked his swing. ("A lot of it is actually trying to understand my body a little bit better in terms of just how I rotate around my body," he said. "A lot of people always were pretty critical of my posture, how much I was kind of diving at the ball. The difference was is that I would say over the last year I did a very good job of managing it, but this time around there’s no management.") He said he watched only some golf. The Ryder Cup. The majors. When friends were in contention. He played, though. One- and two-dollar games. He explored, too. "Last fall I made a conscious effort of, once I was able to play 18," he said, "go play a bunch of new golf courses, go have some fun."

But it's what he didn't do that has him most optimistic. 

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"I’m not at home hitting a million golf balls, trying to figure out my golf swing," Zalatoris said, "when in reality I had a compromised back."

So what can you expect come Thursday?

Patience will be required. Backs are more fickle than even golf. Pain in that area is a bit like a shank - it comes seemingly out of nowhere, it hurts and it lingers. So things may take some time. Maybe Zalatoris contends. Maybe he makes the cut. Maybe he gears toward April and Augusta. That'd be symbolic. Three years ago, he withdrew from there. 

Or maybe we see him again contend at the U.S. Open. Where his acting career started. 

That give him some finality. He'd take a win this time, though. 

"I still am that same kid from 2022," he said. 

"I just have a lot more appreciation for where I’m at." 

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