OWINGS MILLS, MARYLAND | The most interesting and polarizing man in golf – Bryson DeChambeau – stood on the bentgrass floor at the bottom of the massive, white amphitheater built around the 18th green at Caves Valley Golf Club late Sunday afternoon and it seemed for the moment that he occupied the center of the game’s universe.
Maybe he did.
Then Patrick Cantlay holed another putt.
And another one.
And finally one last 25-footer that won the BMW Championship on the same 18th green where DeChambeau had been standing an hour earlier, one swing away from a trophy.
Instead, it was Cantlay holding his white cap over his head as the cheers rained down from what felt like an outdoor coliseum, the noise acknowledging not just the victory but the “can-you-believe-that†beauty of the muggy afternoon.
For all the things that have changed about golf – and DeChambeau is a size XXL example of those things – the value of holing putts has never gone out of style and it never will.
The golf world knows DeChambeau. Until Sunday, Cantlay had been a very good player who seemed one moment shy of being special.
Not anymore.
He played David to Goliath and we know how that story ends.
Now he’s Patty Ice, a nickname born at Caves Valley.
Cantlay, who is so many things DeChambeau is not, proved again that brilliant putting rarely loses. He was a brilliant counter puncher.
“I tried to stay in my own little world,†is how Cantlay described being able to take down a man who, on average, hit it 42 yards longer off the tee.
But if DeChambeau plays with a sledgehammer, Cantlay plays with Excalibur.
Through the 72 holes of regulation play, Cantlay made 537 feet of putts. Divide that by 72 and it’s like making a 7-footer on every hole across four rounds. His 14.58 strokes gained putting for the week is the most since the PGA Tour started tracking that statistic in 2004.
When he needed to keep doing it, he did.
For DeChambeau, who shot 27-under par and did not win the BMW Championship, it had to feel like hitting a tennis ball against a wall. It kept coming back at him until finally he couldn’t return it.
He was beaten as much by emotional erosion as by Cantlay.
Cantlay and DeChambeau put on a mesmerizing duel between styles, brute strength versus otherworldly putting. It was golf’s version of a basketball game between one team dominated by big men and another reliant on guard play and, as sports tend to do, it demonstrated there are different ways to succeed at the same thing – getting the ball in the hole.
It was the most entertaining tournament of the year, five stars and six extra holes.
There are plenty of people who see DeChambeau as golf’s villain for how he plays, how he thinks and how he gets irritated about things he’s created himself, such as his recent tight-lipped feud with the print media.
He even called out Cantlay for moving on the 14th hole Sunday, a brusque but revealing moment for both players. It showed DeChambeau’s commitment to controlling all that he can and it seemed to fuel Cantlay, whose fire burns hot but usually out of sight.
But at Caves Valley, where the Baltimore area hosted the PGA Tour for the first time in 60 years, DeChambeau was the star of stars.
DeChambeau is the show and he loves it. He may act like he doesn’t but he does, and why not? He’s magnetic not because of his quirky personality but because of the way he can stand golf on its ear, forcing a reimagining of how the game can be played. He’s an 18-wheeler rumbling down an open road at full throttle.
He creates hold-your-breath moments. How many other players do that?
Follow him around a golf course and it seems he’s on more cell phones than email apps, the way almost everyone strains to get their own you-had-to-be-there moment like when he ripped a 227-yard 8-iron into the par-3 sixth green Sunday, setting up a birdie.
On Friday, he flirted with 59 and perhaps there was an element of foreshadowing when his 6-foot putt to break 60 for the first time never touched the hole.
For much of the final round, the fans mountain-climbing their way around rolling Caves Valley were polite to Cantlay but they had come to see DeChambeau. He’s like the guy everyone gathers around at a cocktail party to hear his stories and tell their friends about it later.
It didn’t seem to matter one little bit to the fans that DeChambeau has gone quiet with the print media since being rightly roasted for his comments about why he had not gotten a COVID-19 vaccination, saying he is healthy enough that he didn’t want to take needed doses from others, either ignoring or unaware there are more than enough vaccinations to go around.
He's been in a snit about that and has been unwilling to talk with anyone not officially associated with the PGA Tour or its partners. That’s a bad call, but his call. He declined to talk with anyone Sunday after losing the playoff.
Cantlay seemed unperturbed even if he seems to smile as often as he misses from inside 5 feet. He is deliberate but he’s as resolute in his ways as DeChambeau is in his.
The victory sends Cantlay to the Tour Championship this week with a built-in two-stroke lead in the FedEx Cup finale at East Lake. Tony Finau will start the weighted event two shots behind Cantlay with DeChambeau in a three-stroke hole.
Cantlay’s also on his first Ryder Cup team, becoming an automatic qualifier with his victory on the final day of qualifying. All of those things were still floating like bubbles in the evening air as the 29-year-old Californian was asked to explain what it is that allowed him to do what he did Sunday.
“I’m as focused as I can be on every single shot,†Cantlay said. “I try to not let my mind get past the moment I’m in. Maybe that’s why I come off as kind of sedate out there.
“I try not to get caught up in being outdriven by 45 yards. I try to lock in and do my absolute best in that moment.
“And my best is pretty good.â€
It was downright magnificent Sunday.
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