Exclusive: World’s Top-Ranked Amateur, Patrick Cantlay, Sets Sights on Masters
The Tiger Woods era of golf has spawned a generation of high-strung golfers who learn the fist-pump before the flop shot, but UCLA golfer Patrick Cantlay is serene beyond his years. It’s odd – almost refreshingly so.
At 20 years old, Cantlay grew up during the height of Tiger’s dominance, and nobody has more of a reason to celebrate than him. The kid is going to be a superstar – if he doesn’t already qualify – and in two weeks he’ll realize a dream that doesn’t qualify as childhood for the simple fact that millions of adults have dreamt the same dream too. Most of them still do.
Patrick Cantlay, the No. 1 ranked amateur in the world, is going to Augusta National to play in the 76th running of The Masters. It’s a moment that would be easy to become lost in, and Cantlay has plenty of time to show his true age, but, for now, he’s just ready to play golf.
That calm mentality is something that has undoubtedly come from 17 years in the game of golf (he started at three), but lacking all the pretentiousness we’ve come to expect from prodigies, he was quick to credit his parents and his swing coach, Jamie Mulligan.
“A lot of it comes from my coaching, and Jamie Mulligan. My dad is a pretty calm guy, too, so I think that’s probably where I get it. A little bit of that is probably inherited, and a lot of that is from Jamie, too,” Cantlay said.
The idea that it’s genetic certainly makes sense because Patrick’s demeanor seems incredibly natural and that should help him in a couple of weeks at Augusta National, where everything is amplified.
Things could easily change at the first tee, when the nostalgia of Augusta has been known to push and pull tee shots as it pleases. However, Cantlay doesn’t expect that to be an issue. He isn’t the mawkish type.
“I’m not gonna be thinking about it that much,” Cantlay said of the history surrounding Augusta. “Hitting my first ball on Thursday – you know – it’s just really not important to the golf.”
It’d be easy to mistake Patrick Cantlay’s tranquility for indifference, but one look at his track record erases any doubt in regards to the competitive drive of this college sophomore.
Last year, he won nearly every award that collegiate golf has to offer. He won the Phil Mickelson Award for being the nation’s top freshman golfer, the Pac-10 Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year Awards, and the Nicklaus Award, which goes to the nation’s top golfer regardless of class.
He won 4 of the 11 events he entered on the season, and he finished second in the stroke play portion of the NCAA Championships. He was also voted GolfWeek’s Player of the Year, and this is all just collegiately.
During the summer, he was named to the U.S. Walker Cup Team and was awarded the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the world’s top-ranked amateur golfer. He also finished as the runner-up in the U.S. Amateur, which he counts as one of the bigger disappointments of his young career. Most would consider that to be a highlight, and it’s not that Cantlay is conceited, but he is ambitious.
Now, he uses the defeat, among other things, to fuel his game.
“I definitely learned a lot from it, and I think that I’m stronger because of it, but it definitely fuels me. I think everything does,” Cantlay said.
Despite all of his accomplishments at the amateur and collegiate levels, the difficulty of transitioning into the “contents under pressure” world of professional golf is an entirely separate experience. Patrick Cantlay has that covered, too. And it’s not like he is the guy who doesn’t get the job because he’s “overqualified” either, this life is his whenever he decides he wants it.
His first exposure to the PGA Tour was in the 2011 United States Open – easily the world’s toughest golf tournament. Cantlay finished in a tie for 21st at Congressional Country Club, earning him low amateur honors.
“The U.S. Open week, for me, was the biggest (accomplishment of 2011) for sure,” Cantlay said. “It was my first major – my first tour event – and my whole family was there.”
It may have been his biggest accomplishment of 2011, but his success on the PGA Tour wouldn’t stop there.
In the two weeks following the U.S. Open, Cantlay added Top 25’s at the Travelers Championship and the AT&T National. Slightly a month after making a name for himself at Congressional, Cantlay added a Top 10 finish at the RBC Canadian Open, and many thought it was time for the phenom to turn pro.
Cantlay declined.
“It wasn’t that hard (to avoid the pressures of turning pro). I was still definitely going to play in the U.S. Amateur,” Cantlay said. “Turning pro was really never a factor for me. It was the right decision for me to stay in school another year and mature, and grow into the game, and get better.”
After the U.S. Open, Patrick Cantlay got a small taste of what his professional career COULD be like when he was paired with Tiger Woods for the opening two rounds of the Frys.com Open. He made his fifth consecutive cut on the PGA Tour, although his 67th place finish was far from his best performance, but the hysteria that follows Woods like a shadow didn’t seem to bother Cantlay.
Almost nothing does.
“I really didn’t think it was that bad. It was actually fun – he’s a real nice guy – and I enjoyed it. I don’t really mind crowds following me,” he said.
That experience will be invaluable at The Masters, where even the least appealing groups draw gigantic galleries and cheers rise to a crescendo as they reverberate off the oak and pine trees that line Augusta’s immaculate grounds to envelop the players in an almost permanent ambient noise.
Another experience Patrick Cantlay will draw from is the 36-hole lead he had the week after the U.S. Open at the Travelers Championship. Cantlay fired a second-round 60 to seize the top spot on the leaderboard, but admitted in his Masters blog that his nerves got the best of him – it being only his second professional tournament.
After watching Rory McIlroy’s debacle at last year’s Masters, Cantlay hopes that his prior experience as a front-runner will come in handy in the event that he finds himself in a similar situation at Augusta.
“I think (nervousness) can happen to anyone, but I think having been in that position before really made me stronger going forward. I know what it’s like, and I won’t be as nervous as I was that week. That was the second PGA Tour event that I had ever played so I definitely wasn’t as seasoned as I am now,” Cantlay said.
As impossible as a 36-hole lead may seem – Augusta has swallowed up some of the game’s biggest talents in their first few trips – Cantlay is still intent on preparing for the most grandiose stage in golf like it’s just another event. And that means he’s preparing to win.
It may be more prudent for Patrick Cantlay to set his sights on low amateur, or perhaps just making the cut, but Cantlay and success go hand-in-hand, and the goal is simple. He wants – if not expects – to win.
Perhaps this is the brash mentality we’ve all come to expect from a college kid, if it is it would be the first sign of such from a kid who is otherwise tethered to reality. And it is easy to forget that a young man who carries himself so professionally is, indeed, in college.
Professional golf, and quite possibly superstardom, is visible on the horizon, but Cantlay is focused on what lies ahead.
College.
Golf.
The Masters.
Patrick Cantlay won’t let his future sneak up on him, because he’s already stalking his future. He’s reeling it in one day at a time.
I wonder if he has noticed the way it shines.
