Brooks Koepka might disagree, but a noted analyst believes Patrick Cantlay’s slow play might have a benefit for Team USA. In the 2023 Masters, Koepka was fed up with Cantlay’s pace of play and publicly called out his fellow American Ryder Cupper for being “brutally slow.” A frustrated Koepka said Jon Rahm, his playing partner, went to the bathroom “like seven times,” and they still had to wait for the group ahead of them to clear up.

Cantlay dismissed the criticism later, saying it was slow for everyone, and he had to wait for the group ahead on the 15th and the 18th holes. That did little to dissuade the criticism as a video of Cantlay taking over two minutes to hit a shot went viral afterward. While it might be annoying to fans and probably his fellow teammates, Trey Wingo believes it comes with a surprising benefit in tournaments like the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup.

“There are guys that when, let’s say, you’re playing baseball or basketball or football, when they’re on the other team, you hate them. But when they’re on your team, you kind of love them. I think Cantlay brings a little bit of that to the equation,” said noted analyst Trey Wingo while speaking about Cantlay’s inclusion into the Presidents Cup on captain’s nod.

“It’s been shown and played out a hundred million times. He takes forever over the golf ball. You know, someone once compared Brian Harman’s pre-shot routine versus Patrick Cantlay’s, and Harman did it in like 13 seconds quicker. And Brian Harman is not quick over the golf ball. I mean, and again, you have to put this in the proper context; it can be irritating. And I think the idea that someone who is on some level an irritant is a really good thing to have on your team.”

So what was the point Wingo was trying to make? The veteran analyst believes Cantlay’s slow play and his status as an annoying player can be beneficial for Team USA because it’ll rattle the opponents. It might lead to opponents losing focus, and he might just be right. Take the case of the 2025 Ryder Cup.

In the Friday Fourballs, Rory McIlroy was so irritated by Cantlay’s pre-shot routine, he started mimicking the American on the course. The video of that incident later went viral. The match went on till the 18th hole despite the Europeans being 2-up at one point. McIlroy and Shane Lowry eventually tied the match with Cantlay and Sam Burns, squandering their early lead.

Stats guru Justin Ray, who co-hosts the show and played a key role as an analyst of the Solheim Cup-winning Team USA, backed Trey’s point with an amusing comparison of his own.

He linked Cantlay to Patrick Beverley and Dillon Brooks in the NBA, players fans love on their own team but can’t stand on another. “There’s a little bit of that maybe with Cantlay. When he’s on your side, we absolutely love him.”

The conversation reopens as Cantlay is one of Brandt Snedeker’s six captain’s picks for the 2026 U.S. team. He will be joining Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Jacob Bridgeman, Chris Gotterup, and Jackson Koivun for the September 24-27 event at Medinah Country Club.

Notably, it will be his fourth Presidents Cup, and he arrives with a 10-4-0 record in the competition, most of it built alongside Schauffele. The duo already shared a 4-1-0 foursomes mark, unmatched by any other American pairing.

That being said, Wingo makes the sharp observation that he has followed Cantlay’s team event career for years. It’s also part of why his slow play resurfacing ahead of another team event lands as more than a passing gripe.

But Is Patrick Cantlay really that slow? Or is he just the fall guy?

Patrick Cantlay arrives at Medinah carrying two reputations. One is being one of the most dependable American team golfers the team has produced this decade. The other is the man who takes forever over the golf ball, a habit that has followed him through the Masters, Ryder Cups, and now once again a Presidents Cup build-up.

The 2023 Masters turned his pace of play from a minor quirk into a running storyline. It raised calls for a penalty from none other than Brooks Koepka himself. Some pros demanded a shot clock as well. Cantlay, of course, has repeatedly defended himself, mentioning course setups and hole locations as the problem. His comments from the 2023 RBC Heritage are a case in point.

“One thing that’s interesting about sitting on the PAC [Player Advisory Council] is you get all the numbers and the data, and rounds have taken about the same length of time for the last 10 or 20 years that they currently take. When you play a golf course like Augusta National where all the hole locations are on lots of slope and the greens are really fast, it’s just going to take longer and longer to hole out.”

But then he made an interesting admission.

“I’m definitely slower than average, have been my whole career,” Cantlay said in response to a pointed question about his pace of play. “I definitely take my time. And when I hit my ball on a bulkhead, I’m definitely going to take my time to make sure I make the right decision and try to get the ball back into the right spot.”

Two years later, at the 2025 Tour Championship, officials put Cantlay’s group on the clock over the back nine at East Lake, and clips of his lengthy waggle routine went viral again.

Golf coach Claude Harmon III said on his own podcast that he didn’t understand “what the hell is going on,” while Phil Mickelson took a dig at the routine.

On the other hand, PGA Tour pro Michael Kim defended Cantlay directly, saying he takes no practice swing and is “nowhere close to being the slowest guy out there.”

That aside, the pace issue has followed him to team events as well. At Royal Montreal in 2024, Cantlay and Schauffele played a marathon foursomes match against Si Woo Kim and Tom Kim that stretched into near darkness—twelve hours into the day. Even fans needled Cantlay over his “notoriously deliberate play.” Yet Cantlay answered by draining a 19-foot birdie on 18 to win it.

It was the moment that summed up exactly what Wingo is describing. Slow play has never stopped Patrick Cantlay from being one of the most productive players the USA Team has had in years.