Cantlay Reveals His Eleven-Time ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom ….’ Reaction Moment Entering Tiger’s Basement

5 months ago by Comments Off on Cantlay Reveals His Eleven-Time ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom ….’ Reaction Moment Entering Tiger’s Basement

World No. 5 Patrick Cantlay returns to competition for first since being married by teeing-up at this week’s renamed ‘The Sentry’ event in Hawaii.

Cantlay, 31, remained in Italy following the USA team’s Ryder Cup loss to tie the knot, and with he and his wife spending their honeymoon in Rome.

And while it’s been over three months since the Jupiter-based American last teed-up in formal competition, Cantlay’s hardly been out of the news, and the headlines emanating mostly from his role as a member of the PGA Tour’s Players Advisory Board (PAB).

That has entailed the on-going negotiations involving the board that began after last June’s announcement of a framework merger agreement to unite the PGA and DP World Tour with Saudi backers of the LIV Golf League but, as we know, has yet to produce any final deal.

However in attending a pre-tournament interview this week in Hawaii Cantlay was asked his thoughts on Scottie Scheffler achieving the back-to-back reward of being named PGA Tour ‘Player of the Year’, a distinction that Cantlay enjoyed in both 2020 and 2021, and a two-year period when he captured four PGA Tour events and was also crowned the 2021 FedEx Cup champion.

It was when Cantlay was asked his thoughts on being named by his peers as a ‘PGA Tour Player of the Year’ he revealed an insight in once visiting Tiger Woods’ lavish abode also located in Jupiter, Florida.

“I’ll tell you a story. I went over to Tiger’s house, I think to talk Ryder Cup after I had won Player of the Year, and it felt like a big deal to me at the time that I had got a Player of the Year, and they give you this little Jack Nicklaus bronze trophy that’s about yeah high”, said Cantlay, who is in the same Excel Sports Management company as Woods, and also has Woods’ former caddy in Joe LaCava on the bag.

“So we’re walking through Tiger’s house and we’re in the basement and he’s got, like, 11 of ’em lined up right next to each other all in the corner of the basement boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and I go, Hey, I’m catching up, and he looked at me and he goes, You got a lot of work to do. (Laughing)”.

A great yarn from Cantlay but then it was back to more pressing men’s golf matters and Cantlay asked his thoughts on how he feels golf fans are coping with what is taking place off the course.

“I feel for the fan,” Cantlay said. “There has been a ton of confusion not only for players out on tour in the last year or two, but I can only imagine for the fans at home.

“I think the fan is rooting for the attention to go back squarely onto golf and squarely onto the tournaments that are being played and to forget all of this political non-golf talk, which has consumed a lot of the energy over the last couple years.”

For now, the only places for PGA and LIV stars to compete are majors. But Cantlay hopes the PGA Tour’s new set of signature events, with larger purses and smaller fields, will help until the dealmaking concludes.

“I hope with having more of the best players play the same weeks, they know exactly which weeks are important to us players and they get to see a lot more tournaments where the best players on tour are competing against each other down the stretch on Sunday,” Cantlay said.

Other players at The Sentry in Kapalua want PGA-LIV unity for the sake of fans, players and sponsors as they focus on golf and trust the board to hammer out a solution.

“I’m a small piece of a big puzzle,” reigning Olympic champion Xander Schauffele said. “I think everyone wants to see that puzzle sort of whole without missing pieces. The product is probably better if all together than sort of split up.”

Exactly how LIV players who defected from the PGA would be welcomed back was something Schauffele could not solve.

“I’m sure there’s some smart people out there that have some ideas on how to do it correctly. I’m not one of them,” he said.

“You just need someone that’s really smart that’s going to create a fair pathway back for everyone to play again.”

Two-time major winner Collin Morikawa just wants the LIV-PGA fight to end.

“At this point, I think just deals need to be made and we all need to get back to playing golf,” he said.



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