Will Zalatoris Withdraws From Tour Championship, Which Means We're Getting A SPICY Rory McIlroy-Cam Smith Pairing

Michael Reaves. Getty Images.

Well damn. Will Zalatoris went from leading the FedEx Cup after his first PGA Tour win at the St. Jude Championship to withdrawing from the final two playoff events. 

Before we get into the rest of this, all the best and good healing vibes out to Willy Z. What a shitty way to end the season. I'm not here to rejoice in anything injury-related or not recognize some of the human element at play here. The FedEx Cup champion gets an $18 million bonus and even with last week's early exit, he was still sitting in third place!

According to the PGA Tour's official release, there won't be any change to the Tour Championship's adjusted scores. That is, as long as the other 29 players tee it up at East Lake. Which brings us to angle posed in the headline, where I have to tip my hat to Banks for bringing this to my attention.

Assuming Cameron Smith's hip injury doesn't keep him sidelined for the Tour Championship — it forced him out of the BMW Championship — he'll be starting the tournament off with Rory McIlroy. Pairings are decided by the FedEx Cup standings in order, so you remove Zalatoris' name from the third spot, and Smith and McIlroy make up the Nos. 5 and 6 spots respectively:

If there's a silver lining to be had from being robbed of another Willy Z ball-striking stripe show, here it is. Given that the Tour officially released tee times here, it'd take a last-minute WD from Smith to prevent this from happening. I had to put the disclaimer in throughout this post for that very reason.

TENSIONS WILL BE HIGH. Smith is ranked second in the world, is the reigning Champion Golfer of the Year and is heavily rumored all but confirmed to be defecting to LIV Golf. Rory has been the most publicly outspoken proponent of the PGA Tour and its future. Various reports have surfaced in recent days about that closed-door meeting Tiger Woods pulled up for between the top Tour players, but we're all still waiting for official word on what the Master Plan is. The main goal is to incentivize players enough to not bolt for LIV and its bottomless pit of money.

I don't think Rory will be able to talk any sense into Cam. Making matters more intriguing, I'm sure Rory is still salty that Cam went on a Scorched-Earth-Motherfucker Run at St Andrews to steal the Claret Jug. Smith made five straight birdies to begin the back nine of his final round, and birdied the 72nd hole to beat Cameron Young by one stroke and McIlroy by two.

Masters champ Scottie Scheffler is the leader entering the Tour Championship and one of the least-likable, non-LIV (for now) young stars in the game today, Patrick Cantlay, is right behind him after successfully defending the BMW Championship last week. 

I could give a fuck less about that pairing. SNOOZE. The Cam-Rors duo blows those goobers of the water. I really wish they weren't starting six shots off the lead but such is the way of the FedEx Cup. I'm sure both these guys will be professionals and just be maybe a touch more standoffish than usual, but I'm not letting that get in the way of my hype for the PGA Tour's epic finale in Atlanta.

Twitter @MattFitz_gerald