MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 4, 2023

Will Zalatoris

Quick Quotes

Q. Last time we saw you was after the match play. How are you feeling? Recovered?

WILL ZALATORIS: Yeah, no all good. I've never had anything like that. I lost about seven pounds in a week. Feel great now. Kind of reset the system.

Nice to be here as always. This place is -- to say it's special is an understatement.

Q. Talk about your back and the work you did with Greg Rose and working on your swing. Kind of go through a little bit of that.

WILL ZALATORIS: Yeah, so I had two herniated disks, and part of it was actually -- the genesis of it was actually bad right ankle mobility. Because of me not pushing off my right side soon enough and being a very kind of dynamic player with some side bend, my right hip got high and tilt back.

We've been trying to get me actually to stand closer to the golf ball, so that makes me create space with the ball so I can turn more horizontal as opposed to lateral. It's been good.

It's taken its sweet time to get the full swing to come back, but I think really the last couple weeks we finally have seen some progress.

Q. Do you feel like the speed is kind of fully back now?

WILL ZALATORIS: Yeah, I do. I think I'm not playing the long driver anymore, which was -- it really helped on 8 because I could cover that bunker, but I don't want to be sitting on my rear end for four months ever again.

I've been driving it great this year. It's really been the rest of it. So it's good to see coming, especially out of injury, that I've been driving it nice.

Q. There's a moment where you made a putt recently where it was a short putt where you could feel maybe it's herky-jerky. Do you feel the putting is coming along?

WILL ZALATORIS: We're making a couple changes this week, and we're just going to see how it goes. I've been pretty upset with how I've played coming back.

Actually, my back doctor texted me this morning and he said, hey, enjoy this week because this was the goal of coming back was to be back here, and you've played seven events.

You're way ahead of schedule. Results regardless, I think it's kind of a nice little reminder that I guess this was -- if you asked me in October, this was probably 50-50 me playing here, and the fact I played seven events showed that I did the right things. I've had no pain over the last month.

Yeah, we're going to make a couple changes on the greens this week. So far, so good.

Q. Can you expand on that?

WILL ZALATORIS: I'm changing my grip a little bit. I'm going to putt basically with my right hand higher. Vijay did it for a while. I know Jerry Haas, my college golf coach, actually putts this way, and the guy makes everything he looks at.

Inspiration behind putting Claw was Webb, so I guess I'm keeping it in the Wake Forest family.

Q. Were you able to come back here at all this winter?

WILL ZALATORIS: No, I didn't. I say that every year where we try to schedule up a round. So far we have this running joke that I'm going to try to come back early and see the changes, but just with the schedule and everything and being hurt, I needed to spend as much time as I could getting ready for the TOUR events.

13, it's different for sure. It will be interesting because I think with where it is, there's going to be more drivers. With the weather that's kind of a little bit of a saving grace because, if you kind of think about it, we measure driving distance based off of drivers. So 13 never really counted as much in terms of guys hitting drivers. And when guys hit drivers and they hit them offline, they hit a tree and go 260.

Now all of a sudden guys are hitting more drivers. If we didn't have this weather coming in, this would be the longest year probably in the history of the Masters in terms of it driving distance. I hit one about 290 the other day and I couldn't get there. I was on the left side of the fairway, and I hit about a 30 yard hook. I've played that hole terrible in my career. I think I played it even.

I think probably it's going to make it play easier for me. It kind of gets rid of the enticing -- getting me to entice -- looking at going for it.

Q. How's your stamina in terms of being laid up for so long and getting back to walk this course?

WILL ZALATORIS: I think month by month I've gotten better. When I played back to back at Torrey and Palm Springs, I was completely worthless at Torrey, especially with having the Wednesday start.

Then playing Bay Hill and PLAYERS, I was still feeling better, but the game was just not there. I think now I can say I'm 100 percent despite having the stomach virus.

Q. Got that weight back on?

WILL ZALATORIS: No. I need a lot of burgers and beer to get it back. It will come back soon.

Q. Last question. In terms of your ankle, can you describe your exercises, building up strength in that?

WILL ZALATORIS: Yeah, it's called Eldoa. The way how I could describe it would be rotational breathing. Doing rotation patterns so you can expand on your thoracic spine, and that's kind of how you get everything to release.

Yeah, Greg was a lifesaver. I showed up there with a 46-inch driver swinging it about 117, which is probably five, six miles an hour down. I left swinging 44 1/2 at 121, and that was about 36 hours. I owe him a lot of credit for me coming back as fast as I have.

Q. Will, you're a few years removed from being on a Walker Cup team. There's seven amateurs here this year. What did you learn your first year at a Masters tournament that they need to learn out here?

WILL ZALATORIS: For one, soak it in. Don't over prepare. Enjoy this experience, because you get a tee time at the Masters, enjoy it.

My first tee time as a professional, I remember hearing the, you know, the starting, you know, fore please, now driving. I kind of looked at my caddie thinking this is pretty cool.

But soak it in. Enjoy the experience as much as you can. Take everything in. Be where your feet are. And place putts as high as you possible can, because you can't believe how slopy these greens are.

Q. Did you have a lot of family with you your first time?

WILL ZALATORIS: Yeah, it was a weird year because it was a COVID year. The second COVID year, I guess. We only had about 5,000 fans. It was actually a very intimate vibe.

My parents saying that they could basically go to every single shot and see what they wanted to, and then this last year, it was being in one of kind of the feature groups Thursday and Friday, they couldn't really see a whole lot.

Being with your family, being with some friends is probably one of my favorite memories from when I finished second is having a bunch of friends and family over at the house we rented and just kind of reminiscing on the week because it's such a blur. You blink, and next thing you know, it's over.