Maybe, just maybe, poker-face, foot-shuffling Patrick Cantlay is the Ultimate Playoff Machine.
Cantlay did the improbable on Sunday at Wilmington Country Club — he became the first-ever repeat winner of the FedEx playoff event when he came up with a near-birdie on the 72nd hole of the BMW Championship.
Cantlay started the final round with the overnight lead — he was 12-under through 54 holes, a shot better than his best buddy — Xander Schauffle. The two friends played together in every round of this second playoff event — a comfortable pairing for both on Saturday then again on Sunday.
This one didn’t come very easy for Cantlay. On Saturday, he missed a number of short putts — he could easily have been 15-under and in position to run away with the proceedings on Sunday. He spent overtime on the putting green late Saturday and got to the bottom of his issue — he worked on eye-line and starting the putt on the proper line.
His extra work paid off. Cantlay was steady when he needed to be, impressive when he needed to be. At day’s end, his two-under par 69 got him to a winning 14-under par total. But as these things usually go when there’s a lot on the line in a PGA Tour event, especially a playoff event, nothing comes easy.
Cantlay had to battle Schauffle. Scottie Scheffler was lurking as well. Then there was the outlier — Scott Stallings — a player ranked outside the top 100 in the world but a player prone to really good play at times and this was one of those times.
Stallings started Sunday tied with Schauffele at 11-under, a shot back. While Schauffele struggled on and off most of the round, Stallings stayed under par and with a birdie at the par five 14th, got to 13-under and moved a shot in front of Cantlay, who was a couple of holes behind. Stallings had looks at 16 and 17 but failed to make birdie on either. Then at 18 he hit a great drive, found the fairway and planted his approach to nine feet. Behind him, Cantlay birdied the 14th to tie Stallings at minus 13.
Stalling needed that final birdie. But once again, he failed and left the door wide open for Cantlay and you don’t want to open that door.
Cantlay stepped through the door with a 351-yard drive at 17 that left him just 63-yards to the hole from a perfect fairway lie. He stuck his approach inside six feet, converted the putt to get to 14-under.
The defending champion faced one last challenge when his drive found the right fairway bunker. He had a test second but played conservative and found the green, albeit 40 feet from the hole. Then Cantlay nearly holed the long one, leaving a two-inch tap-in for the repeat.
He became the first player in the 16-year history of the FedEx playoffs to repeat as champion at a given playoff event. A year ago, this was how Cantlay began his run to the FedEx Cup title.
The win put him into the second spot behind Scottie Scheffler heading into this coming week’s Tour Championship at East Lake.
“I hit a lot of solid shots and I got a lot of good breaks,” Cantlay said of his day’s work and the title repeat. He talked about how his extra putting work late Saturday paid off on Sunday. “I made a lot of clutch four and five-footers today,” Cantlay acknowledged.
Now he’ll have his shot at more Tour history.
No one has ever won back-to-back FedEx Cup titles.
Cantlay can.
4 Comments
baxter cepeda
I remember when this guy wasn’t even a blip on toms radar last year. Lol.
Cantlay truly is my golf man crush at This point. I used to have a big thing for some super charismatic dominant intercultural guy but he’s yet another golf commissioner or a ceo or something else now.
I did notice something I mentioned to the girls Saturday with Cantlays putting.
He shuffles twice, looks at the hole, then shuffles quite a few more times before doing that last foot move, looks at the hole 1 more time and then goes. What I see is during that extensive shuffle his eyes get off a bit; at least the putter head gets off line, and balls go left.
So I’m definitely not surprised his after round fix was that eye line tool. But if Pat wants to avoid that issue recurring, he needs to shuffle less (difficult since that’s like his trademark) or he needs to look at the hole —or his start line (I believe he uses a spot)— every couple of shuffles. So he would actually be over the ball even longer but at least he wouldn’t lose his direction a bit.
Now, They don’t call him stallings for nothing. I would change my name as a golfer. Take your moms name. The last thing you wanna call yourself coming down the stretch of a golf tournament is stallings. .
That being said stallings truly is an inspiration. Dj and some others have done some notable self improvements over the years, but stallings, wow, guy went from a talented pudge ball to an athletic specimen. He is enjoying the fruits of his efforts and will continue doing so.
But The iceman (and his boy The X man) seem to own the playoffs. Hard to see one of these two not taking it at east lake.
I’m going ahead and saying Cantlay, who almost got the top spot but I believe for a miss on the last by Xander, becomes the first to defend the fed ex cup.
Tom Edrington
Baxter, you may or may not recall that Patrick needed every one of those 10 shots last year — he won by a single shot…….Jon Rahm was the defacto champion — he shot the lowest score…..won the “gross” division, your boy took “low net”
baxter cepeda
Man don’t get me started on the staggered tattered fed ex cup playoffs.
Tripp brought up one of the many better ideas, which is a combination of stroke play for the tour champion and match play for the final 4.
This still has the issue of crowning a tour champion —to satisfy coke, and Atlanta and east lake— before the fed ex cup, which doesn’t really make sense.
One thing is clear; whatever the format one champ is needed because you cannot have a tour champion and then something else called fed ex cup champion. The tour champion part sounds bigger.
For me it’s so simple it hurts: winner at the Coca Cola tour championship wins the fed ex cup.
And all the coke and shipping he can drink and ship.
If players like rahm don’t want 30 guys to have an even Steven chance at east lake then how many?
Where do you draw the line?
I like 25 players for Winner take all.
With just 25 players this would mean the 6 guys starting at even PAR this week would not be there including:
Scott, wise, Theegala, poston and kh Lee.
I see a couple deserving guys and some very likeable guys I’d love to see win it all, but you can definitely make a case for dropping at least 5 of these guys from the tour championship. Kh probably be the best from the list.
That being said by winning the tour championship all of these guys would be very much deserving of being in the tour championship; but hindsight is 20-20.
Now If Monahan dropped the tour championship another 5 guys to 20 players, the -1 under guys would be out like:
Collin, Billy, Harman, hoge, and conners.
Cases can be made for all of these guys to have a even Steven chance at the tour chip. But then again some may argue it should be even more prestigious than what these guys have accomplished this season.
The next list, the guys at -2 under all definitely feel like they belong and deserve an even Chance at the fed ex cup based on the work they have done this season. Guys like:
spieth, homa, Hideki, Joaquin, and viktor.
So maybe the tour championship goes from 30 to 15 players—especially considering a bunch of stars have left— but this way winner takes all definitely makes sense.
There are 9 multiple winners this year, they certainly deserve it. But I’m also ok with 30, so long as whomever wins wins it all!
Cantlay said no one knows the answer to fed ex and said he would leave it to smarter people than him—which I don’t think there are any such people in golf.
Since Pat can focus on just executing in any format it’s left to people like us and Tripp, who excitedly said he knows the answer!
But Again Tripps plan while solid and definitely better than Monahans has the major issue of the tour championship being decided before the fed ex cup which unfortunately doesn’t make sense.
And it’s not like the pga tour is known for match play.
So how can they finish that way?
Unless they add much more match play throughout the season, which I’m very much in favor of regardless of the draw backs. Please don’t explain the draw backs again. We get it. They pga tour and media partners don’t want to lose their stars on Sunday, but then again they let a bunch of stars go and told them never to return. Somehow this is different.
The pga tour has a ton of issues these days but this issue does not need to be so complicated.
They just need to friking play it off over 72 holes as they love to identify with on the pga tour.
It’s just a matter of how many guys deserve get invited into this winner take all coke tour championship for the fed ex cup. Something like that. They can play with the title a little.
But its that’s friking simple!
Now, the earlier rounds of the playoffs are another story.
Another issue. It’s ridiculous as guys finish they don’t know if they made it to the next round or not.
The guys on the bubble should know exactly what’s going on. The only way to do that of course is a straight up golf tournament deciding who’s moving on.
Top guys should get byes —some possibly all the way to east lake— other past one or two rounds ( bye players may still have to compete) —but the rest should have to make one cut at a time to move to the next playoff event regardless of what their regular season record is.
I would have 100 in the playoffs over 4 events and the bottom 25 each week are out (unless they have a bye). The 25 at east lake play for the chip.
Please?!
Tom Edrington
I’ll forward your suggestions to the Tour.