Will Zalatoris’ meteoric rise among biggest world-ranking moves in 2020

Despite being frozen for more than two months last spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic and pro golf’s corresponding shutdown, the Official World Golf Ranking had plenty of movement to show when its final update of 2020 was released on Sunday evening.

The player with the biggest improvement, percentage-wise, from the end of last year to now?

Was it Collin Morikawa, who won his first major, the PGA Championship, this year? Nope, he ranked fourth out of 1,875 players who finished the year with OWGR points.

What about Matthew Wolff, another rising star who didn’t win a major this year but did post a pair of top-4s? Good guess, but he was fifth.

Surely Harris English, who returned to being a top-30 player in the world with six top-10s this year, is up there? Yes, but he wasn’t No. 1; he was eighth.

The correct answer? That would be Daniel Berger, who got healthier after a couple of injury-riddled years and rocketed from No. 154 all the way to No. 13, an increase of 91.56 percent.

Berger began last season on a major medical extension following a 2018-19 campaign where he battled right hand and wrist issues and finished No. 131 in the FedExCup standings. It took him just one event to regain his card, and in the Tour’s first event back during the pandemic he won at Colonial, his first Tour title since 2017.

“I think when I won my first couple times, I took it a little bit for granted thinking that every year it was just going to be easy and you’d have that chance to win, but it’s tough out here,” Berger said in June. “It’s cutthroat, and the best players in the world every week are showing up. I worked my butt off the last year to be in this position, and I’m just glad it all paid off.”

While Berger’s world-rankings climb was impressive, it was hardly the only meteoric rise. Right behind Berger was Will Zalatoris, who ended 2019 at No. 672 in the world but will enter the new year just inside the top 60, at No. 59. For those counting, that’s an improvement of 613 spots, or 472 more than Berger.

Of the current top 100 players in the world, no one came close to Zalatoris’ starting position at the beginning of the year.

The Wake Forest product began 2020 on the Korn Ferry Tour and dominated the PGA Tour’s developmental circuit, winning once and posting 10 top-10s in 16 starts to end the year at No. 1 in points. In any other year, that performance would’ve easily gotten Zalatoris promoted to the big leagues. But not this year.

Because of the pandemic, promotion and relegation between the Tour’s umbrella of tours was nixed until next summer. That meant that Zalatoris, clearly ready to play weekly against the world’s best, would have to wait until August 2021 to earn his Tour card via the KFT, or win twice more and secure an instant promotion.

“When we were told they weren’t going to be allowing any promotions or demotions between the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour, my first thought was I was a little angry,” Zalatoris told GolfChannel.com. “The fact that I could go out and play really good golf and not get rewarded for a year and a half, I was mad at that. But I also knew that that wasn’t the right attitude and I needed to change my mindset and look at it as a positive. … I had to frame it in a healthy way.”

Luckily for Zalatoris, he had a little help. While he wouldn’t be starting the 2020-21 PGA Tour season with status, the pandemic did alter the exemption criteria for the U.S. Open in September. Ten players off the KFT points list were invited, and the top-ranked Zalatoris took advantage of the new opportunity by tying for sixth at Winged Foot.

He followed that with another top-10, a T-8 in the Dominican Republic, and two weeks later added a T-5 at the Shriners Open.

Suddenly, Zalatoris had another pathway to the Tour: as a special temporary member. After his T-18 finish in Bermuda, Zalatoris earned enough points to qualify for unlimited sponsor exemptions on the Tour in 2020-21. Should he earn the equivalent of No. 125 in FedExCup points this season, he will earn full status for the 2021-22 season. Two seasons ago, No. 125 earned 376 points. Zalatoris is currently at 340, which would slot him at No. 30 if he were a full-fledged member.

“It’s just such a strange thing,” Zalatoris said. “Without COVID, the top 10 from the Korn Ferry Tour wouldn’t be getting into the U.S. Open, and I would’ve had to qualify – and who knows if I would’ve qualified? I end up finishing sixth at the U.S. Open and then parlay that into another top-10 and then end up getting special temporary status from a start that I got because of COVID. It’s so bizarre, you know, not many players can say that they’re better off because of COVID, but I was very fortunate and glad I made the most out of the opportunity.

“At the same time, though, I’m looking forward to everything getting back to normal and getting crowds back and having the PGA Tour feel like the PGA Tour again.”

When the PGA Tour resumes its current season in next month, Zalatoris knows where he’ll be. Finishing No. 1 at the end of the KFT’s extended season would not only earn Zalatoris his 2021-22 Tour card but also an invite to The Players in 2022. However, Zalatoris can earn his spot at TPC Sawgrass a different way (and sooner), via the OWGR’s top 50, which would also open him up to major and WGC invites.

So, for Zalatoris, the decision is easy: He’ll accept as many sponsor invites as he can on Tour and try to earn his full card for the following season that way.

“I think I’m going to be playing almost all of my golf in 2021 on the PGA Tour,” said Zalatoris, who is expecting a few starts on the Tour’s West Coast swing, which begins in late-January in Palm Springs. “The thing that I’m going to have to wrestle with is, I’m still relying on sponsorship exemptions. If I don’t have [Tour] starts for three or four weeks, I may go down to the KFT. But for me to hold that No. 1 ranking [on the KFT], I’d have to spend the majority of my time down there, which I won’t do.

“I want to spend all of my time with the PGA Tour.”

Zalatoris will be joined by a talented young crop of Tour stars, a group that include Morikawa, Wolff and Viktor Hovland, a two-time Tour winner who this year climbed 79 spots to No. 14 in the OWGR. Hovland’s 84.95-percent increase was seventh-best this year.

Other notable world-ranking risers include:

• Brandon Wu, the Stanford product who improved 802 spots to No. 170, the biggest total jump among players who began 2020 in the top 1,000.

• Two young South Africans, Wilco Nienaber, the long-hitting 20-year-old who went from No. 1,665 to No. 161 in a year, and 19-year-old Jayden Schaper, who jumped 1,732 spots to No. 342.

• Amateur Ludvig Aberg, who won two pro events this summer to move up 1,505 spots to No. 569.

• And who could forget the world No. 1? Dustin Johnson may have only improved four spots, but that was still good for an 80-percent increase by the Masters champ.

Of course, there were other players who went the other way in terms of their OWGR standing. Among them:

• Some major winners – Henrik Stenson dropped 39 spots to No. 65, Keegan Bradley followed a strong 2019 by falling 80 spots to No. 131 and Justin Rose went from No. 8 to No. 35.

• Chris Wood, who led all players by plummeting 1,249 spots. The former Ryder Cupper is now No. 1,611.

• Francesco Molinari, who barely teed it up in 2020 (seven events), went from No. 18 to No. 112, a 522.22-percent decrease, which was only eclipsed by Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka, who fell 35 and 11 spots, respectively. Woods ended 2020 at No. 41 while Koepka, who ended 2019 atop the world rankings, was No. 12.

And then there were three players – Sung Kang (86), Soomin Lee (295) and Lorenzo Gagli (370) – who will conclude this year ranked exactly the same as last year. Go figure.

Making moves

A look at the Official World Golf Ranking movement of every golfer who finished 2020 with world-ranking points.