Will Zalatoris has enjoyed one of the best years in golf of anyone on the planet.
After beginning the 2020-21 season on the Korn Ferry Tour, the 24-year-old has soared to No. 29 in the world, finished second at the Masters among his eight top-10s on the PGA Tour this season and banked nearly $4 million in combined earnings. But that means squat when it comes to the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Zalatoris has only one way to punch his ticket to the three-event Playoffs for the top 125 in the season-long standings and that’s to win the final regular-season event, the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“It’s win or go home,” Zalatoris said during his pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday.
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As a Special Temporary Member on the PGA Tour, Zalatoris was able to accept an unlimited number of sponsor invites this season. However, he has accumulated zero FedEx Cup points – unless he were to win this week. But here’s the thing: If he were eligible to earn FedEx Cup points he would rank 26th with 1,270 points.
It makes no sense. PGA Tour veteran Webb Simpson went so far as to suggest that there should be a player vote to let Zalatoris play.
“I think I represent a lot of the players, I mean, that I’ve talked to that we all feel that he should be able to go to the Playoffs. Even if he’s ahead of me in the FedExCup Playoffs, I think he deserves to be in the Playoffs,” Simpson said.
Zalatoris would long ago have become a full-fledged member and this would be a non-issue if not for COVID-19 wiping out three months of the season due to the global pandemic. As a result, the PGA Tour froze player status so that no current members would lose their cards. That also meant no one from the Korn Ferry Tour would be promoted to the PGA Tour (unless they earned a battlefield promotion like Mito Pereira). Zalatoris played 16 events on the Korn Ferry Tour and led the developmental tour’s money list when he accepted Special Temporary Membership. (He still ranks eighth in earnings despite not playing that circuit since September).
“Nothing that the Tour has done wrong, I just think it’s a tool that really needs to be looked at and revised,” Simpson said. “He’s played long enough now and in enough events and played well enough, he deserves to be there. The only reason he’s not there is because of the way the rule is written, but I feel like I speak for pretty much all the players that I’ve talked to at least that Will should be in New York next week and it stinks that he won’t be unless he wins.”
It would only be fitting if Zalatoris were to win this week and have a legitimate chance of winning the whole shebang. If he doesn’t, this should be a no-brainer to adjust for in the future, but why wait? This should be rubber-stamped by the Commissioner pronto so that Zalatoris, one of the rising stars in the game, can continue his remarkable year on the PGA Tour and not elsewhere.
“As a backup plan, definitely looking at going to Europe,” Zalatoris said if he fails to win this week.
What a loss that would be to the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Rules were meant to be re-written, especially when it is so obviously an oversight. In this case, the Tour’s playoffs should include the top 126.