While there is a debate to be had about whether the Tour Championship did a good job of crowning the champion for the season, there is little question that so many were delighted to see Tommy Fleetwood get across the line at East Lake.
There was plenty of intrigue heading into the Tour Championship. It was the first time since 2018 that the leader in the FedEx Cup standings would not start the event at 10 under par. So there was the possibility that the person who only just squeezed into the field could end up on Sunday as the FedEx Cup champion.
There were certainly some outliers in the scoring. But most of the players in contention to win in Atlanta had superb years, with Tommy Fleetwood the man to get across the line. Scottie Scheffler would have beaten Fleetwood by one shot under the previous format.
But the tournament did not escape criticism.
The PGA Tour criticised after the final day of the Tour Championship
It was remarkable to see the reception Fleetwood received from the fans on the first tee on Sunday, particularly with the Ryder Cup just around the corner. It may have been a little jarring for his playing partner, Patrick Cantlay.
The reaction to Cantlay was considerably cooler, and that may have something to do with perceptions about how slow the 33-year-old is on the golf course.
Cantlay has long been considered one of the most methodical players on the PGA Tour. And few were left in little doubt as to who was to blame when the final pairing were given a time warning on Sunday.
However, it seemed that no further action was taken. And with that, speaking on Dan on Golf, Dan Rapaport has hit out at the PGA Tour for allowing the situation to get worse by not doing more to penalise players who take too much time.
“The guy Tommy beat was Patrick Cantlay, and this is our first time watching Patrick Cantlay in contention this year because it was the first time Patrick Cantlay was in contention this year. And there was a time when he had sped up his pre-shot routine. The waggles, the looks, it was a big thing in 2020, 2021 and 2022. And then I felt like he made some progress on getting faster over the ball. We’ve regressed, we have absolutely regressed,” he said.
“And all this pace of play talk which we’ve covered extensively on this show, the tour has always agreed that there are certain players whose pre-shot routine is just too long. It’s not an issue of selecting the shot. It’s not an issue of course set-up. It’s just when they’re over the ball, they take too f—— long. And that’s Cantlay. I timed it, on the 16th hole which is a dead straight tee shot, par four, it was his fifth, sixth time hitting that tee shot this week if you include the practice rounds, he took 55 seconds from picking the driver up out of his bag to hitting the ball. It’s really long. It’s too long.
“They had already had a speed warning, they were one and a half, two holes behind the whole day. And then he takes 55 seconds to hit a tee shot once he’s already over the ball. That’s not including the selection, ‘oh, the courses they play are so hard’, it’s just his routine is way too long. And I get it, it’s the last group of the year, they’re playing for all that money, but the problem is with these rules, if you don’t enforce them during the season, you’re definitely not going to enforce them at the end.”
Slow play is an issue Brian Rolapp needs to tackle quickly
One figure PGA Tour fans will be hoping will be taking note of the criticism heading Cantlay’s way is Brian Rolapp.
The new CEO of the PGA Tour appears to be determined to maximise the tour’s potential – and this may be one of the situations where his previous lack of connection to the game may prove extremely beneficial.
Rolapp should see that the really slow players put fans off watching. And you would like to think that he will not be afraid to upset a handful of names in a push to improve the overall product.
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