This explains the timeless appeal of “Groundhog Day” and explains how Will Zalatoris won the FedEx St. Louis Championship. Jude with a clutch Home 7-footer to save bogey on the third hole of a playoff against Sepp Straka at TPC Southwind on Sunday. RELATED: Final leaderboard | Who made it to the top 70? | Winner bag It was the first PGA TOUR win for Zalatoris, who moves to his No. 1 ranking FedExCup. “Yeah, it’s kind of hard to say ‘about time’ when it’s your second year on TOUR, but it’s about time,” said Zalatoris, who missed playoffs at the Farmers Insurance Open and the PGA Championship this season , was T2 at the US Open, and was the highest-ranked player without a TOUR win on his resume. There was one shot that Zalatoris kept struggling with – the do-or-die putt from 5 to 15 feet with everything on the line – and the golf gods kept giving it to him. This season. Last season. Major. non-adults. But on Sunday he tamed his bugaboo not once, not twice, but three times. He missed par from 10 feet on the 72nd hole in regulation to get into the playoff, and from 13 1/2 feet on a similar par on the second playoff hole (also 18). Then, after a tough decision to make an unplayable on the par-3 11th hole – his tee was nestled against a rock wall – he returned to the drop area, putt wide to 7 feet and converted again to finish it off. His eyes welled up with tears and he struggled to speak. All those times he’d congratulated someone else – eight top-10s this season, three runner-up finishes – had all led up to this. “I’m so proud of him,” said Josh Gregory, his trainer, who also broke down in tears. “He’s scrutinized for betting really badly and he’s a really good player. You can’t play as well as him and not be a good athlete, and to get them going down the stretch was pretty awesome. “I think it’s a sign of good things to come,” he added. “Hopefully the floodgates will open now.” Zalatoris entered the week ranked 120th in Strokes Gained: Putting, but that was nothing new. He always raced on the greens. He was a standout junior, but his set-up challenges scared off college coaches. He ended up at Wake Forest, where the coach, Jerry Haas, had played his own games during his professional career. As a TOUR pro, it didn’t take long for Zalatoris to use a modified claw grip and work with Gregory to identify how he could improve on the greens. One change was a sort of point-and-shoot approach that removed any deception from his pre-shoot routine. “Yeah, I tried to get a little faster,” Zalatoris said. “Whenever I struggled, I was slow. I do everything – I’m a fast walker, obviously I’m a fast talker, I do everything fast. But being able to just look at the goal, roll the ball there and move on, accept what’s happening.” What happened on the final hole of regulation, Zalatoris made a curling, left-right 10-foot putt he knew he had to have — well, let’s just say “Zally” had heard the talk of his layup. He pumped his fist and shouted, “What will they say now?” It was a nod to Stephen Curry, who said the same thing after the Golden State Warriors won the most recent NBA title. “I said that,” Zalatoris, who grew up in the Bay Area before moving to Dallas, said wistfully. “Yeah, you know, I’m a big Warriors fan and obviously Steph, he’s a Cal Club guy, he’s obviously a really big inspiration. I follow the Warriors like crazy and when he said that, it kind of relates to my journey so far. “So to be so close and then get written up here and there and then obviously eventually go away, it was — I actually can’t believe I actually said that.” Zalatoris always had to have the moment with the athlete to win. What was surprising, however, was how well he played against the press in the final round. Haas recruited him to Wake Forest because he’s a tee shot, but in the final round at TPC Southwind, Zalatoris hit just 5 of 14 fairways. The three times he played the 18th hole – once in regulation, twice in the playoff – he saved par from a fairway sheltering the rough and deep in the trees. He won despite struggling with an opening-round 71 – outscoring him with rounds of 63-65-66 – and despite never having worked with his captain, TOUR veteran Joel Stock, before. Zalatoris was just two rounds into the Wyndham Championship, the final week of the regular season, when he parted ways with caddy Ryan Goble, explaining that he didn’t want their struggles on the course to affect their friendship. Goble, Zalatoris said, will remain a brother for life. That said, the mid-tournament decision left one of America’s hottest young players suddenly unbuttoned, and Zalatoris, 25, leaned on his coach, Gregory, to carry the bag over the weekend at Sedgefield Country Club. Zalatoris finished T21, and now had to make a decision about a more permanent caddy. Gregory said he heard from “about 50 guys who wanted the job.” One name kept coming up: Stock. “We tried to communicate as much as possible Monday through Wednesday to make this adjustment as easy as possible,” Zalatoris said, “but you never know what it’s going to be like until you’re in the heat of the moment. Joel was really playing more sports psychologist today. He was awesome. He was ripping off dad jokes all day to keep it light, and it’s terrible, but he gave us some pretty good laughs and kept it light. “When the moment needed to be serious,” he added, “he told me to focus on my breathing. … He did an amazing job.” Stock didn’t read any putts for Zalatoris during his first-round 71. They changed that in the second round, Zalatoris called his new bag for reads as he made nearly 105 feet of putt and ranked second in the field in Strokes Won: Putting. (He was 25th for the week.) They did the same for the third and fourth rounds, too, and the playoffs. You could say it worked. “There was a learning curve,” Stock said. “Obviously he’s learning numbers, but he’s very capable of making yards on his own. It was more about talking through .. each shot, where to land it, and he can react from there. Everything was very smooth. His work ethic, his team, the way they brought me in, it felt seamless.” Stock, who was trained by Oregon teammate Ben Crane, a five-time TOUR winner. They were a meticulous duo, with Stock becoming known for tracking such ephemera as how the wheat grows in the projections for each green. Zalatoris, too, is detail-oriented. With every close call, with every sit-down with his team to see where he could do better, he kept working his way back into the standings. He had to find a way to make them up close when he absolutely had to, and when he did, after paying his respects to Curry, he did it again, and yet for the third time. Maybe the floodgates will open. Zalatoris is still only 25. He might zealously protect his lead at this week’s BMW Championship and also win the TOUR Championship, becoming the first to win the PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year and the FedExCup in back-to-back seasons. But we’re catching up. Zalatoris won. This is the important thing. It was about time.
