Patrick Cantlay ticked a whole pile of boxes with a win in the BMW Championship, where he beat Bryson DeChambeau in an epic six holes sudden-death playoff.
Firstly, he won the tournament; secondly, he moved to number one in the FedEx Cup standings heading into the Tour Championship at East Lake; and, thirdly, he inveigled a way into the USA’s Ryder Cup team for the match in Whistling Straits next month.
It was almost as if the €1.45 million pay-day was something of an addendum, although that – too -– had the effect of bringing his season’s prizemoney to €6.5 million in also moving him to a career best fourth in the official world rankings.
Cantlay claimed the sixth – and last – of the available USA Ryder Cup places. He joined Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas in a sextet of players who earned automatic places. US captain Steve Stricker is scheduled to nominate his six wildcard picks after the Tour Championship.
For Cantlay, his fifth win on the PGA Tour and his second of the year, having previously won The Memorial, came in the most dramatic of manners. Even before regulation extended into a playoff, the Cantlay-DeChambeau match-up proved exhilarating.
On the par-three 17th, Cantlay found the water with his tee shot and seemed to have imposed a self-inflicted wound only to get up and down for bogey from the drop zone while DeChambeau contrived to fashion a bogey of his own.
Cantlay then birdied the 18th hole to draw level and there followed a 12-footer birdie attempt on the 72nd hole for DeChambeau to win. He missed. The duo appeared inseparable in sudden death – where more drama ensued, DeChambeau’s aggressive game including driving in a creek – until, finally, Cantlay sank the all-important winning birdie putt on the sixth playoff hole.
There appeared some tetchy moments between the two throughout the final round, including on the 14th in regulation when DeChambeau backed off and asked Cantlay to stop walking ahead. Of that incident, Cantlay recalled: “We had just been told by the rules official to speed up, and I’m not always the fastest walker, so I was trying to get ahead and do my part.”
Cantlay – with three wins in the wraparound season, having also won the Zozo Championship last October – stuck to his own game plan despite being consistently outdriven by DeChambeau.
“I’m as focused as I can be on every single shot and I try not to let my mind get past the moment that I’m in. I’m locked in, and I’m as focused as I can be. Then I kind of let the chips fall where they do, try not to get to get caught up in being outdriven 45 yards or whatever it is. I just try and lock in and do my absolute best in that moment, and my best is pretty good.”
