Cantlay – ‘putt tycoon’ in BMW Championship

Cantlay was crowned on August 29, after six extra holes with Bryson DeChambeau. Both score -27 after 72 standard holes. Cantlay won thanks to a birdie more than five meters from the hole, receiving $ 1.71 million, and at the same time certifying the saying in golf “Taking the ball is for acting, putting the ball to earn money”.

According to the technical summary, he ranked first in putting performance with an index of +14.58 – nearly 15 putts less than the overall level of the remaining 69 players.

That’s a new record on the PGA Tour during the “ShotLink era”, which dates back to 2004. The previous ceiling belonged to Kevin Na, when he beat Cantlay to take the Shriners Open 2019.

“So let’s say I get my revenge. Now I have a magic wand,” Cantlay joked about his performance at the BMW Championship. He changed the putter about a week before the tournament, using a new one – Scotty Cameron Phantom X5 calculated six rounds.

In four benchmark laps last week, his total put-in distance reached 163.6 meters, or 40.8 meters per lap. This number is also the highest on the current PGA Tour. Considering the position of the hole in the range of 3-6 meters, the probability of Cantlay put in at 61% (14 out of 23 shots), while the overall arena average is only 25.6%.

On the final day of the BMW Championship, Cantlay bogey 17th hole from a 2.4 meter putt. It helps him keep a close distance – one stick behind DeChambeau. On the 18th hole, Cantlay recorded a birdie 6.4 meters away to drag the opponent into the playoff.

In the duel, Cantlay was somewhat fortunate because DeChambeau missed the chance to win in all three extra holes, including the rolling phase of the 17th hole – the third round. During this stage, Cantlay twice made the 18th hole at least 30 yards shorter than DeChambeau, but then kept par, 1.8 and 2.1 meters away, respectively.

The match ended on the sixth extra hole, when Cantlay birdie, and DeChambeau putt closer – 3.6 meters away, but didn’t enter. In the four standard rounds alone, both scored a total of 63 birdies or better, except for hole 17. They only birdie when it became the fifth extra hole.

Quoc Huy