ATLANTA – How alarmingly good was Patrick Cantlay’s putting last week in the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland?
“If he putts the way he putted last week for the rest of his career, we have no chance,” Rory McIlroy said with a laugh.
Then again, McIlroy may have been serious.
Cantlay set a PGA Tour record (since data collecting began in 2004) with a mark of 14.57 strokes gained putting as he rolled in 537 feet worth of putts in regulation to finish at 27 under with Bryson DeChambeau.
Then Cantlay capped his epic six-hole playoff victory by burying one final 17-footer for birdie. That dagger to DeChambeau’s heart followed must-makes from 9 feet on the 16th for par, 8 feet on the 17th for par and a 21-footer for birdie on the 18th in regulation.
“He’s like a silent killer,” said Collin Morikawa, who played the first two rounds with the mellow, unhurried Cantlay last week. “He was making everything, he was hitting it well, driving it well off the tee and it’s hard to catch.”
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The 29 others in the field at the Tour Championship beginning Thursday at East Lake Golf Club will have to run down Cantlay. By winning his fifth career PGA Tour title last week, he is armed with a 2-shot lead heading into the first round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale, where $15 million awaits the winner.
He’ll start at 10 under due to the staggered scoring format, with Tony Finau at 8 under, Bryson DeChambeau at 7 under, Cameron Smith at 5 under and the other 25 players starting at 4 under down to even par.
“It’s different than almost any other golf tournament you could possibly play in,” Cantlay said Wednesday at East Lake. “I don’t know another format even remotely close to this. So I’m going to do my best to throw that out the window and try and treat it like any other golf tournament because at the end of the day the best chance for me succeeding is shooting the lowest score possible.”
What was different last week was Cantlay being called “Patty Ice,” likely referring to his measured pace and the ice in his veins that is one of the highlights of his demeanor. Cantlay had never been called “Patty Ice” before last week.
“I’ve had people tell me that it’s hard to come up with a nickname for me. This is the first one that seems to have stuck a little bit,” Cantlay said. “Before this, the only thing I’d ever get is “PC.” I like it. I think it’s great. I think it’s cool when people are getting to know me a little bit and that maybe this moniker maybe has some traction because it maybe rings true.”
Embracing the name in the ATL.
Patty Ice is here to stay.
pic.twitter.com/jWk5VCShPR
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 1, 2021
Cantlay said he doesn’t have to tinker with anything this week but needs to concentrate on getting enough rest after playing 78 holes last week, nearly every one of them while in contention. And he needs to get a better handle on East Lake – in three starts here he’s never finished better than a tie for 20th.
But he’s learned a few things that will help.
“I think controlling your golf ball and staying below the hole and hitting a bunch of fairways is a recipe for success around this golf course,” he said.
And in times of trouble, he can call upon the good memories of last week.
“If I could bottle up how I felt with the putter, that would be very, very good for me,” Cantlay said about his most vivid memory. “And I think the more times you can put yourself in a pressure situation and then you’re able to come through, I think the more you’re going to feel like you’re going to be able to reproduce that.
“So getting on the right side of that and getting some momentum for that feeling and feeling like when the chips are down, you’re going to come through, I think that’s invaluable in golf. So that feeling that I get and that confidence that I had in being able to come through in that moment, I would like to carry that with me and really draw on that when I find myself in a similar scenario.”