Patrick Cantlay may be the coolest man when under the gun on the PGA Tour and it showed all afternoon Sunday at East Lake as the poker-face ball striking machine outlasted the world’s No. 1 player, Jon Rahm, and captured the PGA Tour’s version of the Super Bowl — the FedEx Cup.
The final scoreboard looked like this:
21-under: Patrick Cantlay (67-66-67-69)
20-under: Jon Rahm (65-65-68-68)
16-under: Kevin Na (66-67-66-67)
15-under: Justin Thomas (67-67-65-70)
But wait, those numbers don’t add up.
Here’s what the scoreboard looked like, if, you know, this was an actual PGA Tour event where, you know — low score wins.
14-under: Tie: Jon Rahm (65-65-68-68); Kevin Na (66-67-66-67).
12-under: Tie: Xander Schauffele (68-69-67-64); Viktor Hovland (66-68-70-65)
11-under: Patrick Cantlay (67-66-67-69); Justin Thomas (67-67-65-70).
If it were an actual “low gross” competition and not “low net” — Rahm and Kevin Na would have been headed back up 18 for a playoff.
But no, Cantlay is your wire-to-wire 2021 Tour Championship winner and the overall FedEx Cup holder and $15 million will be wired into his account today.
“Patrick played great golf, and he was four shots ahead of me. And even though I might have been the better man over the week, he earned it,” runnerup Rahm said. “That up-and-down after missing from 17, the second shot from 18 to almost make it is even more impressive. “I think you can say he won this.”
Yes, by the head-scratching variation from the old standard “low score wins,” that is used in every other Tour event (except that Modified Stableford nonsense), Cantlay did win, he edged Rahm by a shot and Patrick needed everyone of those 10 shots he started with.
Rahm, whose putter let him down a bit on Sunday, tried his best but made up only three of the four shots he spotted Cantlay and when a guy like Cantlay is in the zone, that’s way too many.
Despite the “low net” format, it was still pretty testy and dramatic down the stretch. Cantlay led Rahm by a shot until he stuffed his approach to the 16th within six feet and made it for birdie to get to 21-under and led by two with two to play. But at 17, a really poor second left Cantlay with a near-impossible up-and-down and he made bogey. Rahm, on the other hand had a great look for birdie from 11 feet but failed to convert — it was his afternoon theme — his putter let him down.
Rahm had one last gasp after he hit a perfect second to 18, the closing par five that settled 18 feet from the cup on the short fringe — great look at eagle. But Cantlay, under the heat, hit an incredible second that stopped just 11 feet under the hole. “I had a feeling I needed at least birdie. I told myself he (Rahm) was gonna make that chip (for eagle) — he does stuff like that.”
But Rahm’s chip was just off the mark. Cantlay hit a layup putt that left him six inches for $15 million and he didn’t wait for Rahm — tap in for the win.
“I played consistent all year and kinda caught fire at the end,” Cantlay said after the huge win, his biggest. He went back-to-back, taking the BMW then this one — a surefire path to fifteen million big ones.
Truth be known, Cantlay has come a long way from seeing his best friend hit and killed by a car. He’s come a long way from a cracked vertebrae — an no golfer wants to deal with a back injury like that.
“As tough as the tough times were,” Cantlay pointed out, “they made me who I am.”
And this 2021 FedEx Cup winner is the Tour’s version of Cool Hand Luke.
He’s “Patty-Ice” or simply “Iceman.”
No emotion, just results.
Tour Championship Final Results:
Tour Championship Payouts:
1st: $15 million – Patrick Cantlay
2nd: $5 million – Jon Rahm
3rd: $4 million – Kevin Na
4th: $3 million – Justin Thomas
T-5: $2.5 million ($2.2 million each) – Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele
7th: $1.3 million – Bryson DeChambeau
8th: $1.1 million – Dustin Johnson
T-9: $950,000 ($890,000 each) – Abraham Ancer, Billy Horschel
T-11: $750,000 ($705,000 each) – Daniel Berger, Tony Finau, Jason Kokrak
T-14: $620,000 ($583,750 each) – Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen, Cameron Smith
T-18: $535,000 ($527,500 each) – Sam Burns, Harris English
T-20: $505,000 ($497,500 each) – Jordan Spieth, Sungjae Im
T-22: $478,000 ($466,667 each) – Erik van Rooyen, Corey Conners, Scottie Scheffler
25th: $445,000 -Patrick Reed
T-26: $435,000 ($425,000 each) – Stewart Cink, Collin Morikawa, Hideki Matsuyama
29th: $405,000 – Joaquin Niemann
30th (WD): $395,000 – Brooks Koepka
3 Comments
baxter cepeda
Iceman is much more appropriate…like a jet fighter squarely on Toms radar, only not Tom cruise or even Val Kilmer, but good old Edringtons radar.
And when has Matt Ryan ever done anything this clutch? Never.
I’m not even going to address the sillyness of the system since the Iceman handled that as well early last week; except to say my boy Mike Toricos company man words were annoying as heck making it sound like this system has been resolved. Newsflash Mike: It hasn’t. It has a long way to go actually.
The Fed ex cup playoff and finale can be resolved quickly …with an actual playoff —where players finish in the top whatever in each event or unless they have a bye they go bye bye as in go home— but something tells me it won’t be resolved anytime soon sadly.
The interesting thing for me is that if there weren’t as much money at stake most players would agree with the much more exciting playoff format described above. In fact the playoff format described above is so much better the event probably would not even need such a big purse to get peoples attention…except maybe the players themselves whom only do this silly system because of the big money. But I like to think an actual exciting playoff system would get players attention as well.
Credit to rahm —who has basically earned POY undeniably at this point — for staying classy at the end, giving full credit to My boi cantlay.
Cantlay like BioNtec has me wishing I could have bought stock in him long before Tom here ever saw anything like this on his radar. Lucky for Tom he has me the Goose to point things out early.
Tom Edrington
A friend who has seen Cantlay play practice rounds with his buddies tells me he’s outgoing, personable and totally the opposite of what we see at a Tour event…..also, they play for $2,500 a hole!
baxter cepeda
With 15$ million more in the bank Pat will be even more relaxed now playing for 2500$ A hole.