ALL SYSTEMS GO

Former amateur World No.1 Patrick Cantlay’s career has taken longer than expected to blossom, but experts say it will be worth the wait

- Evin Priest

Former Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger began this year with a bold prediction. Standing behind the first tee at Kapalua’s Plantation course, the analyst declared that 2020 would be the year of Patrick Cantlay. “By the end of the year, Patrick Cantlay will be World No.1,” Azinger told me. “That’s a statement, right?!”

In the past three years, former amateur World No.1 Cantlay has started to blossom with two wins on the PGA Tour. Last year, he finished in the top ten at The Masters and the USPGA at Bethpage. Physically, he’s a prodigiously talented golfer. But Azinger feels it is Cantlay’s demeanour that stands out. “He hits it great, but he has that stoic personality,” Azinger said. “I told [Cantlay] he’s my favourite player to watch. I loved watching [Retief] Goosen because he was so mellow; non-reactive. What everyone else sees as kind of incredibly boring, I see as ‘I wouldn’t want him breathing down my neck’.”

But by the end of the first round at the Tournament of Champions on Maui in January, Cantlay seemed anything but boring. The 27-year-old was caught in a spectacular hot-microphone fail on host broadcaster Golf Channel.

It’s unclear exactly what Cantlay was talking about, given Golf Channel was coming out of an ad break. But he was telling a story to playing partner Jon Rahm and his caddie Adam Hayes on the 17th tee at Kapalua. It may have related to slow play, or the wildly erratic weather conditions that made the Plantation course play difficult that day: “I’ve been waiting for this weather for 40 years. These pampered f---s need to play,” Cantlay was heard saying.