Earned a Return Trip to Championship and Lost Again
Leaderboard: Patrick Cantlay Making The Nearly Of The Least
By Dan Reardon
Every bit the FexExCup Playoffs move to their finale at East Lake, the story at the top could not have played out any better for the PGA Tour. The first ii stops featured wins by two of their nearly recognizable players, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas, and third was a feel-good win that added a touch of humanity to the money chase. Add in that the new face of the Bout, Jordan Spieth, sits atop the standings with a better-than-even run a risk of taking the height prize for the second fourth dimension in three years.
What the Tour has also excelled at in contempo years is working with their broadcast partners to sell the stories of survivors trying to get in to Atlanta in the single-elimination events. In Chicago, as Australian Marc Leishman marched wire to wire to win the BMW Title, the concluding spots in the 30-man field of the Tour Championship played to nearly the end. Players like Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson and Louis Oosthuizen failed to brand the cutting, missing past as piddling as one swing of the golf lodge.
As good as Leishman's redemption win after a back-9 collapse ii weeks earlier might exist, Patrick Cantlay may have authored an even amend script. There are so many layers to pare back on Cantlay'due south tale, only know that he faced a ten'9" putt at the 72nd hole for baboon and a trip to the finals. The alternative was to settle for a remarkable comeback season with an incomplete ending.
To understand where Cantlay finds himself at East Lake, y'all need to know where Cantlay has been -- to the top. In 2011, in the midst of a breakout freshmen year at UCLA, he climbed to the top of the Apprentice ranks. In March of that twelvemonth, he became the #i amateur in the world in March and remained in that location for 55 weeks. In his major championship debut at Congressional, he tied for 21st, and that was a warmup performance. The following week at the Travelers, still an apprentice, he put upward a 3rd-circular 60, the best-ever score past an amateur in a PGA Tour issue.
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Afterward he gave a glimpse of the low-key, in-the-moment philosophy that's his profile today. "I tried to accept no expectations," he said, leading into the tournament. "Merely so I didn't limit myself. And yous know, yous can't await to win, but I merely was going to have no expectations, try and play the golf grade equally best I could. And I knew if I played to my capability, I'd take a practiced end." It's probably easy to accept what comes when your first iv PGA Bout appearances are all top 25 and you're still an amateur.
He turned professional after his 2d U.S. Open trip in 2012 and earned his Tour bill of fare the following yr, finishing 11th in the priority rankings. But 2013 was life-irresolute, not because he earned his menu, only because he virtually lost his career. Playing in the PGA Tour's Colonial in May, he injured his back on the range. He tried to play through the injury in the coming weeks until he sought a medical evaluation and learned he had a stress fracture of his L5 vertebrae.
Adamant non to squander his playing status on Bout for 2014, he fabricated five starts before shutting it downwards with the back issues. In 2015 he made i outset in the wraparound season and was done once more. For all of 2016, he sat out, trying to get his back to a indicate where he could resume his career.
When the calendar rolled over to 2017, he decided information technology was that fourth dimension. But he faced the additional challenge of playing on a 10-event medical exemption. He only needed 2 tournaments. Following a T48 at the AT&T Pro-am, he chased Adam Hadwin to the finish line at the Valspar Title, bogeying the final pigsty to miss a playoff past one, but his $680,000 paycheck secured playing privileges for the remainder of the year. Thrilled? Excited? No. Even so Patrick Cantlay. "I'm not really thinking nigh the next tournament. I was just trying to go out and win a golf tournament."
Knowing the dorsum was a work in progress, Cantlay scheduled with an centre toward residual, never playing sequent weeks through the PGA Title. He tacked on a T3 at Harbour Town, and with but 9 stops on his calendar, he made the field at Northern Trust for the start of the FedExCup Playoffs. A T10 in that location got him to Boston. A T13 in Boston got him to Chicago and his first back-to-back starts since his return.
When he converted the birdie at xviii at Conway Farms, he was uncertain if he had fabricated the summit 30. (He finished 29th.) There was no gesticulating, no dancing, no animated high fives. Cantlay is about doing what he expects of himself, and this was what he achieved. "Yeah. Feels good. You lot know, nice to play all the Playoff events. It means a lot for next calendar week. I can option my schedule and, y'all know, it's corking. You know, the way I've been playing, I expected to play well this week, and I expected to make it to the Tour Championship."
His trip to the Tour Title marks merely the third time a actor has made that field in 12 starts or fewer. (Rory McIlroy in 2015 and President's Cup Helm Steve Stricker in 2013 were the other two.) He'll use the same approach he has taken in his abbreviated career, with a mild concern about what iv events in v weeks will mean for his back. He knows his cease has already made him a winner for 2018. "It's going to be nice being in all the Majors and feeling like I can compete with the best players in the world. Getting the chance to do it on a week-in, week-out footing is going to be bang-up."
And it will exist interesting to run into if the 25-year-sometime tin concord out against the young brigade he joined in 2011 at the Walker Cup -- skipping social media. "I won't be joining Twitter, always. That'southward just not for me. It'south not for me," he said years agone. A statement well within the 140-character limit.
Dan Reardon has covered golf for radio station KMOX in St. Louis for 33 years. In that fourth dimension, he has covered more than 100 events, including majors and other PGA, LPGA and Champions Tour tournaments. During his circulate career, Reardon conducted one-on-one interviews with three dozen members of the World Golf of Fame. He has contributed to many publications over the years and co-authored the volume Golf's Greatest Xviii from Random Business firm. Reardon served every bit Manager of Media relations for LPGA events in both St. Louis and Chicago for 10 years.
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Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/patrick-cantlay-back-injury-recovery-pga-tour/
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