MONTREAL — Deep into the dark of Saturday night, with scoreboard lights illuminating the 18th green, the two-time major winner stared at him with disbelief. Xander Schauffele has seen it up close more than anybody. He’s seen it in three continents over five cups. Still, his eyes bulged as the two embraced, tilting his head back in bewilderment, as if to ask: Who is this guy?
If you asked his four-ball teammate Sam Burns, he’d say, “The guy is an absolute just assassin.”
Captain Jim Furyk said he’s the player anyone would want to hit a big putt.
And in that moment Saturday night, as the birdie putt fell to win the most emotional match of the week, Schauffele remained amazed at what Patrick Cantlay can do with everything on the line.
“It’s probably the most fired up I’ve been maybe in my career,” Schauffele said.
The U.S. won the Presidents Cup on Sunday. Again. In what was at one point a hotly contested, back-and-forth team match play event, Cantlay’s clutch play pulled the Americans well ahead before they ran away in Sunday singles for an 18 1/2–11 1/2 win, the largest away victory in Presidents Cup history. They won because they’re better, more star-studded and possibly better managed. It was all quite simple.
But something else became abundantly clear this weekend, which we now can hold as gospel from here on out.
Patrick Cantlay — the polarizing, confounding, seemingly emotionless 32-year-old known as “Patty Ice” — has become one of the all-time team golf legends.
PATTY ICE. CLUTCH!! 🇺🇸🥶
Patrick Cantlay sinks it for birdie to seal a 1UP win and the 11th U.S. point!
📺 NBC and Peacock | #PresidentsCup pic.twitter.com/4CDvRcoQ9W
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) September 28, 2024
His contemporaries talk about him with a chuckle because he really is just different. He’s articulate and thoughtful but also robotic and dry. He’s taken on a larger role in PGA Tour politics — with some saying he’s a primary voice steering the player advisory board — and is criticized for his slow play on the course. He is more infamous than popular yet beloved at the same time. And as an individual player 11 months out of the year, he’s compiled a somewhat disappointing resume as a perennial top-10 player without any major success.
With each level the legend of Cantlay in these moments grows, the questions only become more and more valid about why Cantlay the individual isn’t a multi-time major winner. Or why he’s hardly been in the mix at all.
That frustrating element shouldn’t negate what we’re watching. What we’re watching just makes us want even more.
Cantlay was not the main character this week in Montreal. But he’s the story right now because of the ways he silenced the main characters. That’s the real superpower Cantlay has. There was a 24-hour stretch early in the week when some wondered whether Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im were the most dominant team at the event, because the duo dominated Cantlay and Schauffele in Friday foursomes by a 7 and 6 margin to tie the biggest Presidents Cup blowout e…
