Patrick Cantlay Delivers Clutch Putting for Signature Win

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By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Author

OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Nobody ever questioned that Patrick Cantlay had the chops to be amongst golf’s elite.

What he might need lacked in variety of PGA Tour victories, he made for it with the way in which he received or the sector he beat. His victory Sunday within the BMW Championship — the fifth of his profession and his PGA Tour-leading third of the season — was slightly of every.

On a Caves Valley course that suited the largest hitters, dealing with the largest masher of all of them in Bryson DeChambeau, he delivered a second that shall be remembered for the ice in his veins and nerves of metal.

He actually solely smiled after he made the final of six pivotal putts on the ultimate 9 holes — six of them in a sudden-death playoff.

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“I am simply as targeted as I may be. If I look the way in which I do, it’s as a result of I’m locked in and targeted,” Cantlay mentioned. “And I felt like that right now.”

Much more exceptional is that Cantlay had loads of events to imagine he would not be successful the BMW Championship, but it solely crossed his thoughts as soon as.

That got here on the second playoff gap when he hit his method heavy and got here up 55 ft wanting the opening. DeChambeau, who had a 30-yard benefit off the tee on the 18th gap, hit wedge into 6 ft.

“I favored Bryson’s probabilities of making that 6-footer up the hill,” Cantlay mentioned. “I believed he was going to make that putt. That was possibly the one time that I actually thought I used to be carried out. However he did not make it. That is golf.”

As for the opposite instances? Proper when Cantlay seemed to be carried out, he was clutch.

DeChambeau took a one-shot lead on the par-5 sixteenth with a 12-foot putt, and Cantlay nonetheless confronted an 8-foot par putt to keep away from falling two behind. He made it.

On the subsequent gap, Cantlay’s tee shot bounced quick and proper and into the water, with DeChambeau within the tough simply wanting the inexperienced, about 25 ft from the opening. Cantlay eliminated his cap and slowly tugged it over his head. Absolutely, it was over.

However then DeChambeau muffed his chip and missed his 12-footer for par. Cantlay hit lob wedge from 100 yards away within the drop space and slid within the bogey-saving putt from 8 ft.

“I obtained to pondering, ‘Let’s try to make 4 right here and at the very least not take all of the stress off of him.’ We each had 4s on that gap, and that actually stored me within the golf event, form of switched the momentum slightly bit,” Cantlay mentioned. “It will have been nearly insurmountable if I might have went down two going into 18.”

The most important was the 20-foot birdie putt he made on the 18th in regulation, the one purpose he obtained right into a playoff with a 6-under 66 to match DeChambeau’s rating for the spherical and the astounding complete of 27-under 261.

And even then, there was no aid.

Cantlay missed the 18th inexperienced to the left within the playoff and needed to make a 6-footer for par to increase the playoff. He made the 7-footer on the subsequent gap. And on the fifth additional gap, DeChambeau regarded like a winner once more when he hit wedge to six ft.

Cantlay hit 8-iron to 2 ft. On they went till Cantlay ended it together with his 18-foot birdie putt, two fist pumps as he walked to the opening and maybe his greatest of 5 victories.

He received earlier this season on the Zozo Championship in California, making up a four-shot deficit to beat Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm. He received the Memorial for a second time in early June with a 25-foot birdie putt on the seventeenth gap that led to a playoff win over Collin Morikawa.

This was particular, and a few followers noticed it from outdoors the ropes by shouting out to him, “Patty Ice.”

DeChambeau was something however that. He had 4 putts to win, three of them within the playoff, and the largest miss was the final one from inside 10 ft that might have prolonged the playoff.

Realizing precisely what went incorrect must wait. DeChambeau, who has refused to talk to media apart from PGA Tour broadcast companions, selected to not communicate to anybody Sunday.

It wasn’t the one time he appeared bothered. He rolled his eyes every time Cantlay marked a brief par putt alongside the entrance 9 (generally that reference to “ice” might additionally imply “glacier”). After which on the 14th gap as DeChambeau was getting ready to hit, he backed off and mentioned, “Patrick, are you able to cease strolling?”

“We had simply been informed by the foundations officers to form of pace up, and I’m not at all times the quickest walker, so I used to be making an attempt to get forward and do my half,” Cantlay mentioned. “No large deal.”

Successful was an enormous deal. It moved him to the highest of the FedEx Cup going to the Tour Championship, that means he begins with at two-shot lead. He earned the ultimate spot on the Ryder Cup staff.

He can attribute that to clutch putts, even when Cantlay could not establish the largest one.

“All of them mattered, I suppose, the identical,” he mentioned. “I wanted all of them.”

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