Patrick Cantlay's 2023 Ryder Cup outburst takes dramatic plot twist

Wyndham Clark has told an interesting story about his 2023 Ryder Cup match with Patrick Cantlay against Rory McIlroy that explains a lot.

Ben Smith

01 Feb 2024

Patrick Cantlay's 2023 Ryder Cup outburst takes dramatic plot twist

You'll likely recall Patrick Cantlay played like a man possessed as the sun began to set on the Saturday during the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club.

A hatless Cantlay was playing alongside Wyndham Clark in the fourball contest against Rory McIlroy and Matthew Fitzpatrick.

Before the match began, the U.S. side trailed the Europeans by seven points.

The writing was on the wall and Cantlay was quite rightfully ticked off.

According to Clark, Cantlay was even more annoyed because he thought he was going to be playing the afternoon session with his good pal Xander Schauffele.

The reigning U.S. Open champion made the revelation in a recent appearance on GOLF's Subpar.

Even Clark was surprised at the pairing. He had assumed he was going to be partnered with Max Homa again after the pair delivered half a point in their fourballs match against Robert MacIntyre and Justin Rose.

"Max and I played awesome in that match," Clark told Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz on the podcast.

"And they go, 'hey, you're playing with Pat,' an I was like, whoa, total curveball, kind of threw me off my game a bit."

Clark said morale was at an all-time low before the Saturday afternoon session.

Rumours also began to surface the U.S. side was fractured in a split led by Schauffele and Cantlay.

Turns out, Clark knew perfectly how to motivate Cantlay. The answer? A money match.

All this time, we were led to believe Cantlay was inspired by the several thousand Europeans waving their hats at him.

Even if, at the time, Cantlay didn't know why they were doing so.

He explained: "So I said, first one to five birdies is for $5,000. Every birdie after that is another $1,000.

"So I said, 'I hope you take me for all the money I got.' And he [Cantlay] goes 'Alright, I like that.'

"And Joe LaCava looked at me and goes 'nice job.'"

Cantlay went on to birdie 16, 17, and even drained a remarkable long-range, curling putt at 18 to help the U.S. win the contest 1 up.

Ugly scenes followed the end of the contest in which McIlroy argued with LaCava.

McIlroy later complained LaCava didn't move when he attempted to line-up his crucial birdie putt to halve the match.

The argument overspilled into the car park and a furious McIlroy had to be bundled into a vehicle by Shane Lowry.

McIlroy was shouting F-bombs at another caddie, Jim 'Bones' Mackay, in front of his wife Erica Stoll.

"It's a f---ing disgrace and it shouldn't happen," blasted McIlroy.

Later, McIlroy said his outburst was lauded by European captain Luke Donald in private. "Love that Rory," Donald said in the team's locker room.

McIlroy ignored LaCava's attempts to apologise on the Saturday evening.

"For me, the incident happened, I purposely didn't want to meet anyone on the Sunday morning because I wanted what had happened to fuel me for that day," he previously explained.

"And it's all fine. We're all friends now."

Watch:

.@Wyndham_Clark knew how to motivate Patrick Cantlay during their epic Saturday afternoon Ryder Cup match in Rome. He talked about that round with @ColtKnost and @thesleezyman on this week's show.
Full Episode https://t.co/1BO53Gpn7v pic.twitter.com/DilGa2Abjv
— Subpar (@golf_subpar) January 31, 2024