As Patrick Cantlay duelled into the darkness with Bryson DeChambeau at the BMW Championship, the chants from the gallery began to grow louder. With every shout from the crowd, more fans would pick up on the mantra and join in.
Patty Ice. Patty Ice. Patty Ice.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard it. But I got it all week,” he said afterwards. “I think there was maybe one or two guys that followed me around all four days, and every hole they just screamed it.”
But what started as a fun nickname from a few diehard supporters turned into a full-blown moniker by the end for the unflappable Californian, whose stoic attitude and calm demeanour delivered him a pair of wins to close out the PGA Tour season, and in turn the 2021 FedEx Cup title.
“The nickname kind of came out of nowhere,” he said a week later, after taking down a second Goliath in as many weeks, this time world No.1 Jon Rahm. “Nothing I expected. I heard it last week and it started to gain traction in the playoff, and by the end, lots of people were yelling it out in the playoff.
“This week, right from the first day, it felt like everyone was in my corner and I heard it from all over. And so to me, it just means cool under pressure and I think that suits my personality really well.”
Cantlay was anything but a household name one month ago. Now, he’s the latest in a long line of golf superstars, with his own catchphrase to boot.
Long seen as “the other guy” in weekend pairings with his more notable playing partners, the UCLA product now takes centre stage as the tour’s winningest player during the 2020-2021 season.
“It could have been a different nickname, but he really appreciated that the fans got behind him,” said Matt Minister, Cantlay’s caddie for the past four-plus years. “Because up until last week, everybody else was being cheered for, and then they really started cheering for him. That’s what made the difference, that they got behind him.”
The scene that would follow – with the crowd gathered around the 18th green at East Lake Golf Club, as tour commissioner Jay Monahan presented him the FedExCup trophy – might have seemed like a distant fantasy years ago.
Perhaps when his career first got underway, this moment was attainable. He was the world’s top-ranked amateur, won both the Haskins and Nicklaus awards, turned in the first 60 or better by an amateur in PGA Tour history, and soon fast-tracked his way to membership after turning professional after his sophomore year.
Then the script changed. While warming up on the driving range during the 2013 Charles Schwab Challenge, Cantlay felt as though someone had knifed him in the back. Months later, he would be diagnosed with a stress fracture in his L5 vertebrae. The injury would plague him for years to come. He struggled the next season, then sat out the entire 2015 campaign. There was no other choice.
“[Dr Watkins, my spine doctor], says, ‘I don’t think you should play any golf for a while,’” Cantlay recalled. “I had already been out 18 months or two years, and I said, ‘How long?’ He said, ‘Maybe a year.’ He was dead serious. And that really shocked me, and I was scared.
“…That was a tough pill to swallow.”
His back still not feeling quite right, Cantlay eventually returned to the tour in 2016. But as one problem began to fade, another was right around the corner.
That February, his longtime friend and caddie, Chris Roth, was hit by a car and killed while he and Cantlay crossed the street on the way to dinner in Newport Beach, California. Cantlay, just a few paces away, called 911 before cradling his unconscious friend in his arms. As he sat covered in his best friend’s blood, Cantlay helplessly waited until an ambulance could arrive. Roth was pronounced dead shortly thereafter at a nearby hospital. He was 24.
“Just a freak, one-in-a-million type deal,” Cantlay later said. “Extremely unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time… I’ve done my best to deal with it, but I still accept that it’s going to bother me now and it’s going to bother me for the rest of my life.”
Mercifully, Cantlay would finally catch a break in 2017, when he fulfilled his major medical extension in only his second start by finishing runner-up to Adam Hadwin at the Valspar Championship. After years of misfortune and heartbreak, Cantlay was back where he belonged.
“I think the biggest thing is it’s given me great perspective,” Cantlay said. “I think for a long time, everything just went great. Growing up, I felt like I got better and better in golf and life got better and better, and then it got as bad as it could have been. I felt as low as it could have been for a little while.
“Coming out on the other side of that, I feel like I am a better person having gone through those dark days,” he continued. “But it gives me great perspective and it makes me very grateful to be in the position I’m in today, because it wasn’t always a sure thing. I was very close to going back to school and putting golf behind me.”
Fans could be forgiven if they couldn’t pick Cantlay out of a line-up before the FedEx Cup Playoffs began. After all, he was a relative ghost on tour for years as he recovered both physically and emotionally from all that life threw at him. His days as a force in amateur golf were long behind him.
No longer. His Tour Championship victory was a vindication for all he had accomplished both during the 2020-2021 season and before. He beat Rahm and Justin Thomas at the Zozo Championship, then Collin Morikawa at the Memorial Tournament.
It set the stage for an epic playoff performance, jump-started by that epic six-hole playoff with DeChambeau outside Baltimore, where a litany of must-make putts culminated in a 17-footer that delivered him the win.
Then came East Lake, where those steely nerves – hardened by years of setbacks and anguish – paid off once more. With a one-shot lead going into the par-5 18th, and Rahm staring at an eagle putt to tie, Cantlay delivered the best shot of the tournament, as his 6-iron from 199 metres finished 11 feet from the hole.
The Tour Championship and FedEx Cup now belong to Cantlay. So, too, does a newfound nickname and a host of fans.
“After the playoff, it felt like more people were on my side, and that feels great. And so maybe the nickname has helped me out with that a little bit because it lets me be who I am,” Cantlay said. “But I’ve always said that I’m going to let my golf clubs do the talking, and I’m going to put all my energy into playing the best golf I can and let everything else take care of itself. I did that this week.
“So, if I keep playing golf like this, I will be hard to ignore.”
PHOTOS: Getty Images
