First thing to know about Patrick Cantlay, your Tour Championship front-runner at East Lake this week, is that he is a man of the people.
This year, the PGA Tour began something called the Player Impact Program (PIP), in which the top 10 most popular players (ranked in terms of various social media, internet search and branding metrics) would get a share of a $40 million bonus. Because if there is one thing popular professional golfers need, it’s more money.
Cantlay’s not likely to cash in on any kind of popularity contest. After all, he seems to go into an emotional deep freeze on the course – hence his new nickname, Patty Ice. But if he did. . .
“If I win PIP money,” he said Wednesday at East Lake, “I am going to give it back to the people that made it possible in some way, shape or form. I won’t take any of the PIP money. I think it’s kind of ridiculous.”
Imagine the scene, Cantlay stepping out of character long enough to make it rain as he strolled a fairway, throwing hundred-dollar bills to the gallery. “Because,” he said, “there’s no way a person like me should be able to get into the top 10 of the PIP if not for people out there deciding that they want me to be in the top 10 and to try to get some of that PIP money for themselves.”
The FedEx Cup points leader tees off Thursday with a built-in Tour Championship lead – 10 under, two better than No. 2 man Tony Finau and 10 better than No. 30 Patrick Reed. When considering this favored player in golf’s mutant Super Bowl, it also would be good to know that he did not arrive at this status by limo.
Sure, golf came pretty easily while he was a hotshot player at UCLA. In fact, Cantlay holds the record for longest stretch at No. 1 in the world amateur rankings, 54 consecutive weeks. He was getting Tiger Woods-like previews.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Then came life’s inevitable counterbalancing. After winning in just his second start on the next-level-down Web.com Tour in 2013, Cantlay felt a stab of pain in his back while working on the practice tee. What was eventually diagnosed as a spinal stress fracture cost him nearly four years of a career.
Atop that, he had to deal with the 2016 trauma of seeing his best friend killed by a hit-and-run driver as the two of them were crossing a Southern California street.
But here Cantlay is now, leading the DeChambeaus and the Johnsons and the McIlroys and all the clubhousehold names of golf at the Tour Championship. His previous three appearances at East Lake have been nondescript (best finish 20th). Today, he’s the lead dog, beneficiary of a staggered scoring system that he doesn’t even care for but will do all he can in order to own. “I don’t think it’s a good format. I dislike the fact that we no longer have a Tour champion (a tournament winner separate of a FedEx Cup champion). I dislike the fact that no one knows, when they look at the leaderboard, who shot the lowest round this week,” he said.
He comes packing that cool nickname despite the fact, as he said, “I’ve had people tell me that it’s hard to come up with a nickname for me.” After all, not even Ben & Jerry’s can come up with a clever name for vanilla.
That nickname, Patty Ice, came to the fore at last week’s playoff semifinal in Maryland, when Cantlay just kept draining putts until Bryson DeChambeau gave in on the sixth playoff hole. It was one of the most clutch uses of a putter in memory. He set a record for most strokes gained on the greens – a measure of the worth of his putting relative to the rest of the field – at 14.6 strokes better.
Feel free to employ that catchy nickname at will. “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,” Cantlay said.
For being the PGA Tour’s sole three-time winner this year (5 Tour titles overall) and having climbed into the top 5 of the world rankings for the first time (No. 4), the 29-year-old maintains a stubbornly low profile. The stern, impassive focus he applies on course is not conducive to building an army of loud supporters or piling up the PIP points.
But he is no relative unknown to those trying to catch him this week. Listen to some of the reviews:
“He’s like a silent killer, he just kind of does everything well.” – Colin Morikawa.
“If he putts the way he putted last week for the rest of his career we have no chance. ... What you see on TV is what you get in person. He’s a very smart guy. He doesn’t say a whole lot, but you can tell that there’s a lot going on in his head.” – Rory McIlroy.
“Patrick just doesn’t have any one thing that stands out. But that’s what makes him such a great player is that he doesn’t have anything that is a weakness either. He’s plenty long. He hits plenty of fairways. He’s got a massive short game. He’s tough under the gun, and he’s a great putter. You tell me if I’m missing anything here. He’s just the whole package. He doesn’t get super excited out there. I think a lot of fans want that explosion of emotion and Patrick doesn’t give it to them, so they might pass over him in favor of another player.” – Stewart Cink.
For those not paying attention, perhaps this playoff run to the Tour Championship is a sort of overdue coming-out party for a player denied proper notice.
To that supposition, Cantlay gives a quite thoughtful response.
“Winning is important to me and playing well is really important to me,” he said. “I think with that, if I can be myself, I think people will gravitate towards you. Just if you are being yourself, even if it’s different. And so, I may not be the cookie cutter golfer. I may not look or have the same expressions as everybody else. But I think if I’m true to myself and I just act naturally for me, it will come across that I’m being natural. If I play well and am myself, I think it will all work out.”
And you can keep your PIP money. He’ll earn his the old-fashioned way – with his play.
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