Golf Fans All Raise Same Concern Over Patrick Cantlay & Tommy Fleetwood Situation at Tour Championship

Golf fans are hard to impress, but Patrick Cantlay gave them reason to take notice Saturday at East Lake. The 2021 champion started the day chasing, then delivered one of the round’s best performances to join Tommy Fleetwood at 16-under. Fleetwood needed a 44-foot birdie just to stay in it, while Cantlay’s calm, controlled surge felt inevitable—especially surprising given his poor form this year. What stood out most was his flawless control.

On a day when swings of fortune defined the leaderboard, Fleetwood double-bogeyed the 15th, Keegan Bradley holed out from 57 yards for eagle, and Scottie Scheffler fired a 66 to reach 12-under and extend his streak to 20 consecutive rounds in the 60s. Through it all, Cantlay avoided mistakes altogether.

He strung together birdies, erased Fleetwood’s advantage, and by the end of the third round was tied at the top, three clear of Bradley and Russell Henley at 13-under, and four ahead of Scheffler. It was another example of Cantlay playing his way into contention at the sharp end of a playoff without ever looking rattled.

And yet, here’s the irony with Cantlay: the better he plays, the more fans zero in on something beyond the numbers. His deliberate pace of play has been a talking point for years, and Saturday was no exception. On 18, it took him 2 minutes and 34 seconds from the moment he marked his ball to the time he finally struck his eagle putt. Two minutes and 34 seconds. And it’s safe to say that it did not sit right with the fans.

While Cantlay continues to draw scrutiny for his slow pace, Fleetwood’s story this season has been defined less by criticism and more by heartbreak. Fleetwood has come painfully close this season. At the Travelers Championship, he led until the final green, only to see Keegan Bradley sink a clutch birdie moments after Fleetwood missed his own par putt. Weeks later at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, he surged ahead with three birdies in four holes on Sunday’s back nine, but a par at the 16th and a missed 7-footer at 17 cost him a spot in the playoff, eventually won by Justin Rose.

The scorecard showed consistency and another chance at a $10 million payday, but the chatter from golf Twitter and the East Lake galleries circled back to the same critique.

Fans say Patrick Cantlay is ‘unwatchable’

Starting off strong with what one fan said, “There is no one worse to watch play golf than Patrick Cantlay. He should have the clock called on him every hole. It’s unwatchable”, while the other wrote, “I can’t imagine anything more annoying than watching Patrick Cantlay getting ready to hit a golf shot.” Well, the same was the case with Cantlay at the 2023 Masters.

Paired with Viktor Hovland in front of Brooks Koepka and eventual winner Jon Rahm, the final round dragged to nearly five hours, with Rahm and Koepka forced to wait on almost every hole. Koepka called it “brutally slow,” even adding, “Jon went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting.” But Cantlay denied the allegations, saying, “We waited all day on pretty much every shot… it was slow for everyone.” 

From there, the comparisons came flooding in. Some fans decided to compare Cantlay with Sergio Garcia, and we think we know why. “Okay. I think it’s time for us to discuss Patrick Cantlay’s pre-shot routine, which is becoming Sergio Garcia-like. I seriously can’t even watch him hit a shot anymore because it is so annoying to me,” one frustrated fan wrote.

The comparison isn’t random either. At the 2024 Open Championship qualifier at West Lancashire, Garcia was put on the clock and blew up at R&A officials, snapping, “You’re always right, we’re always wrong,” after a slow-play warning on the 8th hole. Still fuming, he admitted the warning threw off his rhythm, leading to bogeys and eventually costing him a spot in the field.

And of course, some fans had to go ahead and warn the co-leader at East Lake about the fate that’s waiting for him. “Poor Fleetwood has to play with Cantlay tomorrow. I hope he’s brought a good book with him.🥱#TourChampionship”, wrote one fan, while the other said, “Watching Cantlay play is as exciting as watching paint dry. LFG, Tommy Fleetwood!!!” And well, this slow play problem can very well be the reason Fleetwood loses his footing with his last chance for a PGA Tour victory this year. So, what are your thoughts on the matter? Our comment section is open!