Will Zalatoris Has Another Back Surgery, Hopes for Return in Fall

The 28-year-old said he had re-herniated two discs and had surgery last Friday.

Will Zalatoris missed the cut at the PGA Championship then had surgery a week later. / Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

Will Zalatoris will miss the rest of the 2025 PGA Tour season after having a second back surgery in two years.

The 28-year-old, currently ranked 84th in the world, announced on social media that he felt progressively more uncomfortable during the spring and that after the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow an MRI revealed that he had re-herniated two discs. He said he hopes to return in the fall.

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Zalatoris, the 2021 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, had climbed to No. 7 in the world in 2022 after a summer with runner-up finishes at the PGA and the U.S. Open plus his first Tour win at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He was one of golf’s preeminent ball strikers in the game and popular with fans.

But after the St. Jude, he withdrew from the BMW Championship after injuring his back in the third round, then missed the Tour Championship and Presidents Cup. In 2023, he withdrew from the Masters and two days after that underwent back surgery. He had a microdisectomy, a procedure to relieve pain related to a herniated disc in the spine.

“Playing and living in pain is not fun,” he wrote on social media after that surgery. He missed the rest of the 2023 season.

Returning last year, Zalatoris finished 38th in FedEx Cup points and had three top-10 finishes early in the season including a T2 at the Genesis and T9 at the Masters.

This year, the Dallas resident was 99th in points and his last four events were missed cuts at the Masters and PGA Championship and T54 finishes at the RBC Heritage and Truist Championship, two no-cut signature events with smaller fields.