After injuring himself during the third round of the BMW Championship last week at Wilmington Country Club, Will Zalatoris has announced via the PGA Tour that he has withdrawn from the Tour Championship — the FedEx Cup Playoff finale — to be held this week at East Lake Golf Club. The reported cause of the injury is two herniated disks in his back.
Heading into East Lake, Zalatoris was ranked 3rd in FedEx Cup points, which meant he was starting the Tour Championship at seven under relative to the field, and only three shots behind the current leader, Scottie Scheffler, who sits at 10 under.
Although making it to the Tour Championship comes with a string of exemptions for the 2023 season (which Zalatoris had already claimed anyway), the most costly part of his WD is the chance to take home the $18 million first prize. Even if Zalatoris maintained his position in the standings and finished third, it would have been good for $5 million — a pretty nice end-of-the-year bonus. Even 10th place gets $1 million.
As a result of the WD from the Tour Championship, Zalatoris has automatically dropped to last place (30th) for the event and regardless of playing or not will take home $500,000. It was also announced he’ll miss next month’s Presidents Cup.