Patrick Cantlay Finishes Strong at US Open to Post Best Major Finish of Season
Patrick Cantlay capped off his weekend at The Country Club in consistent fashion, and his day-to-day improvement epitomized that consistency.
The UCLA men's golf alumnus shot a 1-under 69 in the fourth round of the 122nd US Open on Sunday, continuing his trend of shaving one stroke off his score each round. Cantlay was 2-over Thursday, 1-over Friday and even par Saturday, and his 2-over 282 over the weekend slotted him into a tie for 14th when it was all said and done.
Cantlay was tied for 39th when he wrapped things up Saturday, but he teed off Sunday tied for 25th thanks to rough afternoon conditions that hampered the second half of the field.
After birdieing 1 for the first time all week and birdieing 2 for the second round in a row, Cantlay was knocking on the door of the top 10, tied for 11th.
That early progress was almost immediately erased, starting with an extended stay on the fifth green. Cantlay made it onto the green in regulation, but three putt and got stuck with the bogey.
Things went from bad to worse on 6, when Cantlay tried to roll his drive onto the green, only to plunk it into the side of a bunker. While the trap was only a few yards from the pin, Cantlay had to chop his ball out watch it roll backwards down the hill.
Cantlay fell victim to the same hill on his next shot – his chip hit the green but rolled back onto the apron – and his bogey putt broke late and missed right to make it a double. Three holes after starting the day with back-to-back birdies, Cantlay was over par for the round, and his chances of finishing in the top 10 went from 52.4% to 10.1%.
As it turned out, that would be the final bogey Cantlay had all day.
Birdieing 8 for the fourth day in a row, Cantlay was sitting at even par midway through the round just like he was Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Cantlay strung together four-straight pars, only broken up by his first birdie of the week on 13 – the most difficult hole on the course.
Cantlay rattled off five more pars to close out the round, and that was with some strokes left on the board – the former Bruin missed birdie putts by a foot on 14, 17 and 18. Had he hit all three of those, Cantlay would have ended the weekend under par and inside the top 10.
Still, Cantlay locked in a bogey-free back nine and played nothing but clean golf for his final 13 holes. Cantlay hit nine of 14 fairways after hitting just five on Saturday, and he was under par ever since he narrowly made the cut Friday.
Although his 341-yard average driving distance from Saturday went down to 309.7 on Sunday, Cantlay still finished the tournament with the fifth-longest average drive distance at 319. And by gaining 1.82 strokes off the tee in the fourth round – leading the field by the time his day was done – Cantlay ranked No. 6 with 4.07 throughout the entire week.
Cantlay has had plenty of success this season – as he did en route to winning the FedEx Cup and PGA Tour Player of the Year in 2021 – but that success has mostly come in non-majors. A win at the Zurich Classic and runner-ups at the WM Phoenix Open and RBC Heritage have been surrounded by a tie for 39th at The Masters and a missed cut at the PGA Championship.
Immediately following his award-winning 2011 season at UCLA, Cantlay tied for 21st at the US Open. It took Cantlay a decade to best that performance, finishing in a tie for 15th in 2021.
Cantlay just barely one-upped that in 2022, and he also did enough to stay put as the No. 4 golfer in the world by the end of the weekend. Cantlay has yet to win a major, with his two career top-10 finishes coming at the 2019 Masters and 2019 PGA Championship.
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