{"id":222610,"date":"2021-04-09T05:52:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T02:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/up-and-comer-will-zalatoris-looks-to-continue-masters-splash\/"},"modified":"2021-04-09T05:52:43","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T02:52:43","slug":"up-and-comer-will-zalatoris-looks-to-continue-masters-splash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/up-and-comer-will-zalatoris-looks-to-continue-masters-splash\/","title":{"rendered":"#Up-and-comer Will Zalatoris looks to continue Masters splash"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Up-and-comer Will Zalatoris looks to continue Masters splash<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2014 It\u2019s always difficult to properly measure these things, of course, because it\u2019s sports and there are so many variables involved.<\/p>\n

But Will Zalatoris might be a name in golf you\u2019ll be getting quite familiar with in the coming years \u2014 perhaps even by sundown Sunday at Augusta National, where the 24-year-old playing in his first Masters stands five shots out of Justin Rose\u2019s first-round lead after shooting a 2-under 70.<\/p>\n

Years ago, I recall a colleague from a Florida news<\/a>paper writing about Ernie Els when no one had ever heard of him.<\/p>\n

Els, then a lanky young South African, had been invited by Arnold Palmer to his invitational tournament at Bay Hill and, before Els had accomplished anything of significance on the golf course, the writer wrote about the presence and it factor Els exuded.<\/p>\n

This is, in no way to project Zalatoris having the same kind of Hall of Fame career that Els has had, but the kid does have a presence about him. He looks, sounds and acts like he belongs despite being a mere neophyte on the professional golf scene.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s confident, but not cocky, which is the perfect blend for an athlete.<\/p>\n

\u201cKind of the joke that I\u2019ve been saying with my family is if I\u2019m stupid enough to think I can play here, then I\u2019m stupid enough to think I can win it,\u2019\u2019 Zalatoris said.<\/p>\n

\"Will
Will Zalatoris <\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite being skinnier than a signpost (6-foot-2, 165 pounds), Zalatoris smashes the golf ball.<\/p>\n

In the beauty that makes golf unique to all other pro sports, Zalatoris on Thursday was paired with Bernhard Langer, who\u2019s 39 years older than he is and played in his first Masters 14 years before Zalatoris was born.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hit 5-iron on a par-3 [sixth hole] and he hit 9-iron, so he\u2019s four irons longer than the same hole,\u2019\u2019 Langer said. \u201cIt\u2019s just hard to imagine.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Given where Zalatoris was about a year-and-a-half ago, it\u2019s hard to imagine he\u2019s at Augusta playing this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeventeen months ago, I was [ranked] 2,000-plus in the world,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cI missed Korn Ferry Q-school two years ago and basically was sitting down with my coaches, not even two years ago, talking about playing mini-tour stuff.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s in early contention to win the Masters in his first try, attempting to become the first Masters rookie to win a green jacket since Fuzzy Zoeller, the only man to do it, did it in 1979.<\/p>\n

And to think: Zalatoris was in a mad scramble to qualify for the Masters, barely getting into the field by getting himself inside the top 50 in the world rankings, which he did at No. 45.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust me, it\u2019s not like I didn\u2019t have that cutoff [date] circled by any means,\u2019\u2019 Zalatoris said. \u201cOf course, you want to play a Masters. But it\u2019s just part of the journey, and good golf takes care of a lot of things.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Zalatoris, despite not having won yet, has been playing good golf for a while now. This season alone, he has five top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour, including a tie for sixth in the U.S. Open at Winged Foot.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been experiencing a lot of firsts on this wild ride of his, but, he said of his first Masters: \u201cThis one is different.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou dream about [this] for your entire life,\u2019\u2019 Zalatoris said. \u201cIf anything, in a weird way it kind of takes a little bit of pressure off because it\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, I\u2019ve wanted to do this my entire life [and] now I\u2019m doing it.\u2019 \u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

And he looks unfazed while doing it, which often is the sign of young player destined for stardom.<\/p>\n

Zalatoris, who lives in Texas, has tried to emulate Jordan Spieth, who he calls \u201clike an older brother\u2019\u2019 to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe won everything growing up, and I\u2019ve admired him since I\u2019ve known him,\u2019\u2019 Zalatoris said. \u201cI\u2019ve known that he\u2019s been this special player since I was 10 or 11 years old. Whatever he accomplished, that raised the bar for me.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Zalatoris played Augusta once before this week \u2014 as a sophomore in college when a Wake Forest donor who\u2019s a member invited some of the players for a visit. Zalatoris doesn\u2019t remember what he shot that day, but he does remember screwing up his order for breakfast in the clubhouse before the round.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe waiter asked, \u2018Sir, what would you like for breakfast? And I said, \u2018I\u2019ll have a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, a side of fruit and coffee,\u2019 \u2019\u2019 Zalatoris recalled. \u201cThen I thought, \u2018You idiot, you order that at McDonalds. You\u2019re at Augusta National and you\u2019re going to order the same thing you order at McDonalds?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the best breakfast sandwich I ever had.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

If Zalatoris wins week, he becomes a member of Augusta National for life, and he can have whatever he wants for breakfast whenever he wants it.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Up-and-comer Will Zalatoris looks to continue Masters splash” AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2014 It\u2019s always difficult to properly measure these things, of course, because it\u2019s sports and there are so many variables involved. But Will Zalatoris might be a name in golf you\u2019ll be getting quite familiar with in the coming years \u2014 perhaps even by sundown…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":222611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/Will-Zalatoris.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[101255,101395,71941,101396],"class_list":["post-222610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-4-8-21","tag-ernie-els","tag-the-masters","tag-will-zalatoris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}