Patrick Cantlay Crumbles After 76 At Travelers, Is Something Going On?

Patrick Cantlay wastes great opportunity after disastrous round at the Travelers Championship.

Patrick Cantlay hardly resembled the player who had shown up over the first three days of this year’s Travelers Championship.

He came into Sunday’s final round just a shot adrift of leader and eventual winner Xander Schauffele and had hardly put a foot wrong during the first three rounds of this year’s tournament.

Cantlay had recorded three rounds under par on consecutive days, the best of which came on Saturday after a bogey-free round of 63 had placed him firmly in contention.

Last year’s FedEx Cup winner has come close to winning on multiple occasions this season already, but so far has not been able to get across the line on his own this season.

The lone victory for Cantlay came at the Zurich Classic team event back in April alongside one Xander Schauffele.

Patrick came close to winning in both Phoenix and at Harbour Town this year, but on both occasions, he came up short in a playoff, once to Scottie Scheffler and once to Jordan Spieth.

This week at the Travelers Championship may have arguably been his best chance of the season to date, playing alongside good friend Xander Schauffele who hadn’t won on the PGA Tour since back in 2019 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, and who had just squandered a significant five-shot lead on Saturday.

Patrick Cantlay completely fell apart on Sunday, however, and not only did he not challenge Xander, but he also didn’t even remain remotely in contention.

Patrick Cantlay fell apart on Sunday at the Travelers Championship.

The World’s 6th ranked player crumbled on Sunday en route to the second-worst round of the day. Cantlay’s final round 76 was only beaten by Harry Higgs on Sunday who slumped to a final round seven over par, 77.

Patrick was all over the place right from the get-go, he struggled to hit fairways, was inaccurate with his irons, and was unsteady on the greens.

Cantlay had gained strokes in one of the key statistical metrics in each of the first three rounds, but on Sunday he lost ground across the board. This included losing over six strokes total in just one round.

Perhaps his worst shot of the day came on the par 3, 8th hole when Cantlay mishit his tee shot and watched on as it flew just 120 some odd yards in the air and into the water in front of the green.

He had to scramble to save what was his fifth bogey across his first eight holes.

Patrick found himself tied for the lead after the first two holes on Sunday, but was never even close to Xander from that point on. He fell from second all the way down to 13th when all was said and done.

More than just a bad round for Patrick Cantlay?

The final round was pretty uncharacteristic from a player who stared down and got the better of players like Collin Morikawa, Bryson DeChambeau, and Jon Rahm last year. Throw in his excellent Ryder Cup record over the years and it becomes even more peculiar.

Seeing Patrick completely fall apart as he did during the final round is not something we have become accustomed to seeing from one of the best players in the world.

You can’t go a day without speculation nowadays, therefore, was his performance just a bad day, or something else?.

Cantlay didn’t exactly shoot down the question as to whether or not LIV Golf had made him an offer during his meeting with the media earlier in the week, instead, he responded with the following:

"“My team handles all that kind of stuff, whether it be just any of the sponsors that I have oranything in that department. I haven’t had any direct contact with them recently. So I really, you know, I don’t have anything like that outstanding.”"

Speculation is all that is at this point, but it would certainly help explain his disastrous finish to the week at this year’s Travelers Championship if there were any truth to it.

Regardless, the one takeaway from this week for Cantlay is that he blew a really good opportunity for his first individual win of the season, perhaps his best one so far.