Despite some major struggles at the St. Jude Championship last week, Patrick Cantlay entered the BMW Championship in the top-10 of the FedEx standings and with an opportunity to earn the title next week.
Things were not looking great for Cantlay after he hit two bogeys in a three-hole span about midway through Round 4 on Sunday. He needed to do something special to defend his BMW Championship and continue his ascension up the rankings.
That’s exactly what Cantlay did in hitting three birdies in his final eight holes to defeat Scott Stallings by one shot. The highlight of the round was this approach on 17, which took a bit of luck at the Wilmington Country Club in Delaware.
Patrick Cantlay would end up chipping in for birdie to take a one shot lead over Stallings heading into 18 before parring out for the astonishing win.
By virtue of this win, Cantlay now moves up to No. 2 overall in the FedEx Cup Playoffs heading into the season finale at East Lake Golf Course in Atlanta next week.
Cantlay’s six-under par 65 in Round 3 set the stage for this. He seemed to be pretty confident following that performance on Saturday even after hitting a bogey on 17 to finish the round.
“The greens are a little beat up and it probably wasn’t a good stroke, so I’ll go take care of that after the round, practice little bit,” Patrick Cantlay said. “It’s very unlike me, and things like that happen.”
Patrick Cantlay, rest of the field now head to East Lake
As noted above, the final tournament of the PGA season will start Thursday with multiple golfers in the running to take home the championship.
By virtue of his win, Cantlay heads into the event ranked second behind Scottie Scheffler (third-place finish in the BMW Championship). Will Zalatoris is third after having to withdraw from this week’s event due to a back injury. Xander Schauffele and Sam Burns round out the top five.
It has been a great season thus far for Cantlay with 11 top-10 finishes, including wins at the BMW Championship and Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Will he continue this next week at East Lake?