Patrick Cantlay suggests solution after being slammed for "brutally slow" play

04 May 2023 , 14:10

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Patrick Cantlay responded to his slow play critics (Image: PGA TOUR)

Patrick Cantlay has once again hit back at his critics, after the former FedEx Cup champion was slammed for his pace of play at last month's Masters Tournament.

Cantlay played in the penultimate group in Sunday's final round at Augusta National alongside Viktor Hovland, and was blamed for the slow play across the Georgia course. Eventual runner-up Brooks Koepka pointed the finger at the American after playing behind Cantlay and Hovland in the final round, branding his play "brutally slow".

This was later echoed by Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick, who was left frustrated with the American star after playing alongside him during his victory at the RBC Heritage, one week after his Augusta criticism.

Ahead of the opening round of this week's Wells Fargo Championship, the point on slow play was once again raised to Cantlay, but claimed he does not pay much attention to his critics. "I don't worry if I'm unfairly criticised," he said on Wednesday.

"It's a similar question for do you feel you are underrated or not talked about, which I've gotten before. I don't try to pay too much attention to that, I just try to shoot the lowest scores I possibly can. Like I said before, I don't spend any time on social media so I haven't seen any of it."

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The 31-year-old even went on to offer a resolution to speed up the pace of play at PGA Tour events. Cantlay added: "If you really wanted to make guys play faster, you would put the tees up and you would put easier hole locations and the greens would roll at 10 if you really want to, and you hope it never blew more than 10 miles an hour.

Patrick Cantlay was criticised at the Masters and RBC Heritage (AP)

"When you get really tricky days 3and the greens are really fast and the hole locations are on lots of slope, it's going to take a longer time to play. But like I've said before, rounds on Tour have pretty much taken the same amount of time for a number of years now and I don't think they're going to set up the golf course in a way, like I said, to make rounds, you know, go a lot faster."

Cantlay also admitted he had discussed the issue with Jay Monahan, with the pace of clearly not an issue at last week's Zurich Classic: "I talked to Jay Monahan today," the American revealed. "He said New Orleans, the golf tournament finished 24minutes ahead of schedule and they had 24 minutes of dead time after the tournament ended. He said no one was complaining that they finished too early."

Joshua Lees