2022 St. Jude Championship leaderboard, grades: Will Zalatoris escapes bizarre

The FedEx Cup Playoffs once again began in dramatic fashion. For the second consecutive season, the first postseason event needed extra holes. In a three-hole battle between Sepp Straka and Will Zalatoris, it was Zalatoris who proved victorious after what can only be described as a bizarre playoff.

Having traded pars on the 18th to kick off extra holes, the two returned to the tee. Zalatoris lost his tee shot right, and it easily could have gone out of bounds. Meanwhile, Straka found the hazard — narrowly avoiding the water lining the left side of the fairway in the process. They both would ultimately make unconventional pars, but that is where things would stop being normal.

With Zalatoris’ tee shot finding (and inexplicably staying on) the rocks in the hazard on the par-3 11th, it set the stage for Straka to claim his second PGA Tour title of the season. Yet, in a stunning moment, he too found the penalty area. Straka was unable to find the green with his third shot, and with his compounding mistakes, Zalatoris’ maiden victory was firmly in his grasp.

It is almost poetic that Zalatoris’ first trip to the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour occurred in such a way, as his path to his point has been as abnormal as they come. While he is the reigning PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, the Wake Forest product was an omission from last season’s FedEx Cup Playoffs because he was not a full-time member. Since then, he has added heartbreak after heartbreak, losing in a playoff to Justin Thomas at the PGA Championship and just missing out on one at the U.S. Open.

Inevitably, it felt this would happen again after his tee shot on the final playoff hole, but the golf gods had a way of intervening. Much like Tony Finau and Xander Schauffele, the more one positions themselves late on Sunday, the more often the breaks — or should I say bounces — go one’s way.

This is especially true of Zalatoris, as it was never a matter of “if” he would win on the PGA Tour, but rather “when.” His moment finally arrived at TPC Southwind. With his St. Jude Championship title, he has ascended to the top spot in the FedEx Cup standings. Now, he has the potential to follow in the footsteps of Patrick Cantlay and sprint through the finish line at East Lake and raise the FedEx Cup crown. Grade: A+

Here is the breakdown of the rest of the leaderboard at the 2022 St. Jude Championship

2. Sepp Straka (-15): Coming into the week off six consecutive missed cuts, if you told Straka he would have a 9-iron in hand with a chance to win the tournament, he would have taken it in a heartbeat. He showed tremendous resolve down the stretch, hitting clutch shot after clutch shot to match Zalatoris, who was in the group ahead of him. In the end, it was not meant to be, but his play displays the ungodly depth currently on the PGA Tour. It also shows that a player’s fortunes can change on any given week. Grade: A+

T3. Lucas Glover: He was No. 121 at the start of the St. Jude Championship and will be leaving Memphis just outside the top 50 of the FedEx Cup standings. Without a top-20 finish since the Texas Open in April, the former U.S. Open champion played his best golf of the season at…