Even with the kind of season that earned him the PGA Tour vote as
And when he does, there are some things he doesn’t remember or can’t explain.
Take the tongue, for example.
Cantlay typically is the model of concentration over every shot. Every now and then, his tongue will cover his upper lip as he prepares to hit a shot.
“I am who I am, and so if I watch on TV and I see myself do something — my tongue’s sticking out or something — I don’t even really realize in the moment I’m doing it, and so I’m maybe seeing it as other people are seeing it for the first time. I try to just embrace who I am, and if my tongue sticks out a bunch, we’ll see. I can have a competition with MJ.”
That would be Michael Jordan, whose tongue wags on the court, not the course.
It speaks to a quiet appeal of players who deliver big moments without big fist pumps. David Duval was like that, except for his putt to shoot 59. Dustin Johnson is similar (he points to a birdie putt at Medinah in the 2012 Ryder Cup as his big moment). Cantlay lightly pumped his fist twice when he made the winning birdie putt in his six-hole playoff victory at the
Has he ever totally lost all control of his emotions?
“I’m sure I have,” he said. “To be perfectly honest, I really am just so focused on what I need to do that I almost ... by the time I’m there picking the ball up out of the hole, I even forget that I’m supposed to have done a fist pump or anything like that.”
LPGA STATISTICS
Three months after the LPGA Tour introduced a statistical model called the “KPMG Performance Insights,” it’s ready to roll out some of the results this week during the Golf Channel telecast of the Cambia Portland Classic.
Without the overwhelming financial cost of having laser data for every shot by every player (ShotLink on the PGA Tour), the LPGA is relying on caddies to share distances to provide an idea of how they compare with the field. That’s the statistic known as “strokes gained” developed by Mark Broadie of Columbia University.
Some of the statistics that analytics specialist Justin Ray of “Twenty First Group” compiled were not surprising. For example, Nelly Korda is really good and Inbee Park can really putt.
Korda, the No. 1 player in the world, leads the LPGA Tour in strokes gained off the tee. She is sixth in approach shots and she has been among the top 30 in putting dating to the LPGA Mediheal Championship in June.
According to the LPGA data, players make 28% of their putts from 10 feet to 15 feet. Since the KPMG Performance Insights tracking began, Park is making 64% from that range.
The data can also help illustrate a particular round, and Madelene Sagstrom was singled out from the first day of the AIG Women’s British Open at Carnoustie. She made nine putts of 10 feet or longer and six of 20 feet or longer. It added up to 7.19 strokes gained in putting against the field, the single best performance since tracking began in June.
KORN FERRY TOUR
The Korn Ferry Tour is getting back to a regular schedule with 26 tournaments set for 2022 and increased prize money.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Korn Ferry Tour had one season over two years, with no advancement to the PGA Tour in between and no international events.
The Korn Ferry Tour on Tuesday released a schedule that again starts with back-to-back weeks in the Bahamas in January, followed by tournaments in Panama and Colombia, and a stretch of 17 events in 19 weeks from early May until the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship the first weekend in September.
Most notable is the minimum prize money of $750,000 ($135,000 to the winner) that goes up to $850,000 for the final regular-season event at the Pinnacle Bank Championship in Nebraska, with the three Korn Ferry Tour Finals events at $1 million each.
The tour said purses will be at $1 million in 2023, with $1.25 million for the final regular-season event and $1.5 million for the KFT Finals.
Even with golf disrupted for three months during the pandemic, the Korn Ferry Tour still managed 46 events over the last two years.
ROOKIE PERKS
Will Zalatoris finally has a PGA Tour card, and one of the perks is being able to set a schedule without knowing for certain when he will get a sponsor exemption. Unlike other players who have a card for the first time, that schedule already includes the Masters.
Zalatoris is a different kind of first-time PGA Tour member.
He was voted
“The peace of mind of knowing where I’m going to be playing is huge,” Zalatoris said. “Last year I had a couple sponsor invites in January and next thing you know, I played seven weeks in a row and kind of got fried there at the end of February into early March.
“So I think really being able to figure out exactly what my schedule’s going to be and kind of shape everything around that — as opposed to everything being a shotgun — is going to be really helpful.”
The early plan is the first three PGA Tour events, with hopes of getting into the Zozo Championship in Japan.
BERMUDA SPONSOR
Bermuda is getting an additional sponsor and a bigger purse for a PGA Tour event that began as an opposite-field tournament.
The Butterfield Bermuda Championship will be played Oct. 28-31. Butterfield is a Bermuda-based independent offshore bank and trust company and joins Bermuda Tourism Authority as sponsors. And because the HSBC Champions in Shanghai was canceled, Bermuda again will receive full FedEx Cup points and offer the winner a spot in the Masters.
Prize money is rising to $6.5 million this year, up from $4 million last year, and it will be a 132-man field, an increase of 12 players.
Brian Gay won last year in a playoff.
The PGA Tour also confirmed the Zozo Championship will be played outside Tokyo on Oct. 21-24. Still to be determined is how many players will travel across the Pacific for one tournament. The CJ Cup, scheduled for the previous week, is again moving from South Korea to Las Vegas.
DIVOTS
Since the start of ShotLink in 2004, only five players have finished a season in the top 30 in all the “Strokes Gained” categories (off the tee, approach, around the green and putting). Patrick Cantlay is the only one to have accomplished that twice. The others were Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy. ... The Gainbridge LPGA is returning to Boca Rio Golf Club in South Florida next year. It was held this year at Lake Nona in Orlando. ... Ian Poulter, Paul Casey and Sergio Garcia are the only Ryder Cup members who have played the PGA Championship all three times at Whistling Straits. ... Duke graduate Jaravee Boonchant has been selected for the Juli Inkster Senior Award as the highest-ranked Division I player in her final year of eligibility.
STAT OF THE WEEK
Sergio Garcia has contributed as many Ryder Cup points (25½) as the entire American team.
FINAL WORD
“The best thing you can do to be a team player is win your point.” — Rory McIlroy on the Ryder Cup.
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