MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Josh Gregory watched it all from the clubhouse, watched as the FedEx St. Jude Championship went bonkers, his leg propped up with an ice pack because he might have torn a calf muscle.
He watched Will Zalatoris almost hit his tee shot into someone’s backyard on the second playoff hole. He watched Sepp Straka almost hit his tee shot into the water, so close to the edge that he took off his shoes, rolled up his pants and thought about hitting the most important shot of his career shin-deep in a TPC Southwind pond.
He watched perhaps the most delightfully bizarre ending in Memphis professional golf history when Zalatoris and Straka needed a third playoff hole to decide the first FedEx Cup Playoffs event this city has hosted.
He watched another Zalatoris tee shot bounce multiple times on the bricks surrounding the par-3 11th, the ball lodging itself improbably between the edge of the rough and the masonry. He then watched Straka do almost the exact same thing, except his ball bounced in the water.
He watched it all with perhaps as much emotion as Zalatoris, the 25-year-old who won the first PGA Tour event of his career Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship after finishing runner-up so often during his young career.
That’s because Gregory is Zalatoris’s coach who he grew up in Bartlett, Tennessee and won a state championship at Christian Brothers High School. Gregory won a city amateur title, played on this same course, while in college at SMU. His father, Jim, passed away on New Year’s Eve and he stayed this week with his mother.
“I couldn’t dream of anything better. This is home. It’ll always be home,” Gregory said. “To see him win at home, you can’t write a better script.”
Let’s be honest, though: Nobody would have thought of this. Nobody would have considered the drama that unfolded, drama the PGA Tour would be wise to latch onto as its feud with the LIV Golf series evolves this offseason because few even remember who won the first events on that competing circuit. Let Memphis be your guide in how to fight this battle.
It started seven hours before Zalatoris and Straka arrived at the 11th green for the 75th hole of the tournament.
Cam Smith, the latest rumored defection for LIV, was given a two-stroke penalty for improper ball placement on the fourth hole Saturday. Conspiracy theories ensued, even as the PGA Tour quickly sent out a rules official who gave a perfectly reasonable explanation for what…
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