‘He Outdrove Me A Couple Of Times’ - Will Zalatoris Gives Tiger Woods Verdict After Masters Practice Round Together
The 27-year-old offered his thoughts on Tiger Woods' game after accompanying him in a practice round before The Masters
Tiger Woods is days away from playing in just his second event of the year when he attempts to claim a sixth Masters title.
The 15-time Major winner has been preparing for the event with practice rounds, including one on Sunday after his arrival at Augusta National where he even had a vintage Wilson Staff putter among his options.
One player who has seen first-hand how Woods has been performing during his preparations is 2021 runner-up Will Zalatoris. The 27-year-old is competing at this year’s event for the first time in two years after back surgery following his withdrawal from the 2023 edition.
On Monday, he played nine holes alongside Woods in another practice session, and afterwards, he reported to the media that his 48-year-old playing partner had no issues with his swing in the build-up to the event.
He said: “He played great today. He outdrove me a couple times so there was some chirping going on. So, you know, he looks great. He's moving as well as he can be. Again, with everything he's gone through, it's pretty amazing to see how good he's swinging it.”
"He played great today, it's pretty amazing to see how good he's swinging it" 🏌️Will Zalatoris shares his thoughts on practising with Tiger Woods today 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ShEYqIyuvVApril 8, 2024
Woods had to withdraw during the third round of the 2023 event before undergoing a subtalar fusion procedure on his right ankle days later. That meant he only returned to action at December’s Hero World Challenge, which also marked Zalatoris' first event after his own surgery, and the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship winner revealed that Woods has been a big help to him during his recovery.
He explained: “You know, it's kind of more of just, ‘Hey, how you feeling? You feel this? You feel that?’ The patience game is really hard. Obviously he had gone through way more than what I had gone through.
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"Having the same surgeons kind of the same team, you know, just having the conversation I guess about, 'Hey, after this amount of time how do you feel?'”
As for Woods’ record at The Masters, which includes making 23 successive cuts, one short of the outright record, Zalatoris is in no doubt about his legacy.
He added: “It's just everything the guy has done. You could just sit there and analyze the same stats for his entire career and put him in five different buckets and every one of them is never going to be broken.”
Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories.
He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game.
Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course.
Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.
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