Midrange putts stumped this Tour pro. But he’s now swearing by 1 drill

Make, make, miss, miss, miss, make, miss, miss, miss, make, make, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, make, make, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss. 

Again! 

Make, make, miss, miss, miss, make, make, miss, miss, miss, make, make, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, make, make, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss. 

Again! 

Make, make, miss, miss, miss, make, make, miss, miss, miss, make, make, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, make, make, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, make.

Winner! 

Whew. Apologies for the intro being a bit challenging to navigate, but midrange putts — the 10-to-25 footers — had been just that for Will Zalatoris. He was frustrated, too. It wasn’t just that he was missing — it was that he was missing after frequently putting himself in that range, or better, as one of pro golf’s best ball strikers. Think of where Zalatoris would be if he were even fractionally better.

He’d taken steps. After missing time in 2023 due to injury, he returned late that year with a broomstick putter, which he believed cleaned up things from 10 feet and in. But past that was a grind. Last season on the PGA Tour, he was 166th among players in putts from 20-to-25 feet (8 percent); 170th from 15-to-20 feet (14.29 percent); and 46th from 10-to-15 feet (33.9 percent). 

But Thursday, during first-round play at the Sentry, the Tour’s season-opening event? He birdied 1 with a 20-footer. He birdied 3 with a 24-footer. He birdied 6 with a 22-footer. He birdied 7 with a 9-footer. He birdied 11 with a 17-footer. He finished third in strokes gained: putting. 

Goodness. What happened?

One drill was key. 

“Yeah, I think last year if you really kind of think about it,” Zalatoris said, “I really wasn’t playing much golf until the November coming off of the injury, and switched putters to the broomstick, and was still trying to figure out how to learn it. I had some good weeks, had some bad weeks, but spent a lot of time — I mean, it’s cleaned up everything inside of 10 feet, which obviously was usually my bugaboo, but I felt like I needed to make more 10-to-25-footers. 

“So we made some really hard drills, [coach] Josh Gregory and I, and I wasn’t leaving each day until I completed ’em, especially from the 10-to-25-foot range.”

Drivers

What was the drill? We tried to illustrate it in the first paragraphs of this story. 

“So, 30 putts, five 10-footers, five 12-footers, five 15, five 17, five 20 and I got to make nine out of 30, and do it until you complete it. So it’s basically, like the drills that we do, you look at the strokes gained average from those distances and then maybe try to raise it, maybe try to get to strokes gained plus 1, which makeS it that much harder, especially if you’re doing it on a practice green that I know. 

“Obviously it paid off today. That was really probably the best I’ve putted from 10-to-25 feet maybe ever. It’s a nice way to start the year.”

Indeed. But it seemingly takes time. Scroll back up to look at Zalatoris’ numbers from the 10-to-25 foot range — and consider that 9 of 30 is 30 percent. For comparison, here’s a look at how the leaders in those categories fared last year — Max Greyserman made 23 percent of his putts from 20-to-25 feet; Sam Burns made 31.09 percent of his putts from 15-to-20 feet; and Hayden Springer made 40.52 percent of his putts from 10-to-15 feet. 

Of course, Zalatoris’ effort came over just one round and 18 holes. But he’s encouraged. 

“It’s nice to be in a really good spot and really good head space,” Zalatoris said. “Body feels great. Put in a lot of great work over the last four months.”

Editor’s note: GOLF.com recently published another story on Zalatoris — headlined “Will Zalatoris gained 19 pounds in 4 months. But not for the reason you might think” — and that article can be found by clicking here or by immediately scrolling below. 

*** 

Will Zalatoris’ season ended last year in the middle of August in Colorado. He stepped off the scale that week at 163 pounds and, at 6-foot-2, was as wiry as ever, fully aware that he was set to get even skinnier. That’s what he’d grown accustomed to, dropping five to 10 pounds during the offseason months in the fall. 

Only, he didn’t want to lose any weight. In fact, he wanted to gain weight.

And a lot of it. 

News

“I was tired of people telling me I have a 22-inch waist and all that stuff,” he said Thursday from the season-opening Sentry event in Maui.

But this was about more than just his waist. Zalatoris needed to create a better operating weight for himself to be able to play at a high level, at a high speed and for three or four weeks in a row. The past few years had taught him that he didn’t have the stamina to power through the heat of a PGA Tour season.

“If you look at the weeks that I had throughout the year, my best weeks were always the first of a stretch, and I always loved playing one, two, three weeks and building in a rhythm,” he said. “And the events that I’ve won as a professional, it’s been in like the third or fourth week. And just, by the third or fourth week, I was down a couple miles an hour in swing speed, I didn’t really feel very good, I wasn’t driving it great, and it’s just hard to play out here like that. I knew I needed to get stronger. It wasn’t so much about the speed; I know that the speed will come. I needed the stability to make sure that I was able to do what I’m doing.”

By that he means swing hard and not hurt himself, which has been an ongoing saga for Zalatoris in recent years. The 28-year-old, who stormed onto the scene with six top 10s in his first nine major starts, battled herniated discs toward the end of 2022, eventually pulling out of the 2023 Masters and quickly resorting to a microdiscectomy surgery. He took months away from the game to heal before returning at the end of 2023. Last spring nearly featured a victory at the Genesis Invitational, but quickly devolved into more pain as Zalatoris battled a hip injury throughout the summer. 

Which brings us to the end of his season in Colorado, where he decided enough was enough. Zalatoris got on a workout program with performance expert Damon Goddard and has spent the past four months bulking up, first mentioning it to reporters during an appearance in December in South Africa. When he stepped on the scale in Dallas before heading to this week’s Sentry event, it read 182 pounds: a 19-pound increase in just four months. 

The benefit of added weight, he said after shooting an eight-under round to kick off his season, is that he feels he has maintained the carry distances he seeks without swinging “110 percent” at the ball, putting less stress on his body. 

“I think the best way I could describe how I’m feeling compared to where I was before this weight gain was I thought I was at my 100 percent, and it still didn’t feel good,” Zalatoris said. “I would have to take a couple days off and rest my back, or get a bunch of treatment. Not doing that anymore. It’s hard when you’re limiting your practice to then go out and play against the best players in the world. So now I think the beauty of it is I’m trying to do this for longevity, I’m not doing this for distance. If you look at my numbers, they’re all the same, but it feels so much better.”

It’s been a long journey toward feeling better for Zalatoris. He admitted Thursday he feels so good, it’s like he didn’t even have surgery. And while it remains to be seen how these changes show themselves on leaderboards moving forward, he hasn’t had a cortisone shot — a pain killing injection he relied on in recent years — since August, another sign that the quick fixes are hopefully a thing of the past.

“The ceiling is something that I wanted to keep raising,” Zalatoris said, “because I knew that if I was going to be sitting at 160 pounds and trying to hit it 300 yards out here, it’s not a recipe for longevity.”