Patrick Cantlay blames THIS reason for slow play accusations

The slow play discourse has continued as Patrick Cantlay once again defended his speed ahead of the Wells Fargo Championship.

Lara Kuipers

04 May 2023

It may still be a while before Patrick Cantlay can escape the slow play accusations on the PGA Tour.

This week, the 32-year-old is back in action for the Wells Fargo Championship.

And nearly a month following the conclusion of The Masters, he's still being asked about his pace of play.

The unenviable microscope on the World No. 4 began back in early April, after Brooks Koepka complained about the pace in the pairing ahead of him during the final round of The Masters.

That pairing was Cantlay and Viktor Hovland.

Koepka told reporters:

"Yeah, the group in front of us was brutally slow. Jon went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting."

A week later at the RBC Heritage, a designated event on the PGA Tour, winner Matt Fitzpatrick and runner-up Jordan Spieth were both reportedly unhappy with Cantlay's pace as they played in a group together on the Sunday.

Shortly after, Fitzpatrick went on a slow-play rant during an interview with Sky Sports Golf. He said:

"If you're in a three-ball, in my opinion you should be round in four hours, four-and-a-half absolute maximum - it's a disgrace to get anywhere near that. You're talking five hours and 15 minutes, five-and-a-half hours at some venues and its truly appalling."

This week, ahead of the latest designated event at Quail Hollow Club, Cantlay was asked about the slow play concerns.

He told reporters on Wednesday:

"You know, I would -- if you really wanted to make guys play faster, you would put the tees up and you would put easier hole locations and the greens would roll at 10 if you really wanted it to, and you hope it never blew more than 10 miles an hour. When you get really tricky days and the greens are really fast and the hole locations are on lots of slope, it's going to take a longer time to play.

"But like I've said before, rounds on Tour have pretty much taken the same amount of time for a number of years now and I don't think they're going to set up the golf course in a way, like I said, to make rounds, you know, go a lot faster.

"I talked to Jay Monahan today, he said New Orleans, the golf tournament finished 24 minutes ahead of schedule and they had 24 minutes of dead time after the tournament ended. He said no one was complaining that they finished too early."

Cantlay was also asked why he thought his slow play accusations were happening now all of a sudden.

He said:

"I'm not really sure. Maybe shorter attention spans."

Luckily for Cantlay, he says he's doesn't spend time on social media and isn't worried about the criticism.

"I don't worry if I'm unfairly criticized. It's a similar question for do you feel you're underrated or not talked about, which I've gotten before. I don't try to pay too much attention to that, I just try to shoot the lowest scores I possibly can," he said. "Like I said before, I don't spend any time on social media so I haven't seen any of it."

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