ROME – Hats off to Patrick Cantlay.
He breathed some much-needed life into the 44th Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club by holing a hat trick of putts on the final three holes to flip his fourballs match and give the U.S. a glimmer of hope that they could mount a comeback in Sunday singles and retain the Cup.
It was as cold-blooded as Ian Poulter going into Poulter-geist mode late on Saturday in 2012 and inspiring the Europeans to one of the great comebacks at Medinah.
But that only scratches the surface of Cantlay’s day. While he was busy taking on Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton in the morning, Sky Sports’s Jamie Weir posted on social media that among other things, Cantlay was behind a rift in the U.S. locker room and he “believes players should be paid to participate in the Ryder Cup, and is demonstrating his frustration at not being paid by refusing to wear a team cap.” He credited unnamed sources.
Cantlay wears a hat on the PGA Tour and is paid handsomely to do so, previously by the investment bank Goldman Sachs and currently by DeWalt, the tool maker. When asked about why he wasn’t wearing a hat this week, Cantlay explained, “The hat doesn’t fit. It didn’t fit at Whistling Straits, and didn’t fit this week. Everyone knows that.”
That may be and plenty of golfers, including Rory McIlroy, have gone hatless in the Ryder Cup before. Still I tend to agree with ESPN’s Michael Collins, who tweeted that Cantlay saying he can’t find a hat that fits – despite the players being measured several months ahead of time for team uniforms – “is like a fat guy in Whole Foods saying, I can’t find the vegetables.”
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But to think Cantlay doesn’t want to win the Ryder Cup is ludicrous. This is the guy who told his teammates at Whistling Straits, let’s step on their neck and score 20 points.
In any event, word spread quickly in the grandstands, and fans began taunting Cantlay, who was paired with American Wyndham Clark in a fourballs match against McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick. At the sixth green, fans shouted at Cantlay, “Show me the money,” and by the 16th they were waving their hats at the hatless wonder.
Spectators shake their hats and caps at Patrick Cantlay of Team United States (not pictured) on the 10th hole during the Saturday afternoon fourball matches of the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf Club on September 30, 2023 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
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