Jack Nicklaus is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to competing at the very highest level of the game, so something he told Patrick Cantlay back in 2019 now makes for very interesting reading.
Nicklaus is the greatest golfer to have ever graced the game in most people’s opinion, with 18 major championships and 73 PGA Tour wins to his name.
The 85-year-old left an indelible mark on the game of golf, and he is one of the most popular figures in the sport still to this very day.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Patrick Cantlay.
Cantlay’s slow play on the PGA Tour is hugely off-putting not only for his opponents, but golf fans the world over as well.
The 33-year-old, who has eight PGA Tour titles to his name, has a stoic personality, and fans find it incredibly hard to warm to him.
One of Cantlay’s eight wins on the PGA Tour came at the Memorial Tournament in 2019, where of course, Nicklaus is the host.
And it is very interesting indeed now to look back on what the 73-time PGA Tour winner told the notoriously monotonous Cantlay midway through the tournament six years ago.
What Jack Nicklaus told Patrick Cantlay about his attitude on the golf course
Cantlay fired a superb final round of eight-under par 64 to win the Memorial Tournament by two strokes from Adam Scott back in 2019.
He made eight birdies and 10 pars after starting the day four shots adrift of the leader, Martin Kaymer, and two behind Scott.
It was a sensational display of golf from Cantlay on day four of the Memorial and if truth be told, it is surprising that he hasn’t gone on to win more tournaments since then, including a couple of majors.
After he won the Memorial in 2019, the 33-year-old revealed what Nicklaus had told him earlier in the week.
Cantlay said: “I was in there having lunch after the early morning round on Friday, and he grabbed me aside and said, you need to go out there, have a good time. Look around when you’re out there. Look at all the people having a great time. And then you need to have a great time and realize that that’s why you’re there and relax and go have fun and go win the golf tournament.
“And I definitely said that to myself down the stretch today on the back nine. It put me a little more at ease, and I hit a lot of really nice quality shots with the lead, coming down the stretch.”
Perhaps Cantlay does enjoy playing golf at the very highest level for a living, but he certainly doesn’t show it.
Perhaps he would gain more fans if he relaxed a little and showed a different side to himself. That said, it could be argued that he wouldn’t be the player he is if he let his guard down on the golf course.
At the end of the day, Cantlay has got to do what’s best for him and his game.
The reason why Patrick Cantlay reminds Jack Nicklaus of himself
While the two golfers are on the completely opposite ends of the scale when it comes to their popularity, they are seemingly more alike than you might think.
After Cantlay won Nicklaus’s tournament at Muirfield Village in 2019, the ‘Golden Bear’ offered him huge words of praise.
“He reminds me a lot of me,” Nicklaus said.
“I get so wrapped up in what I’m doing I forget about everything else that’s going on around me. And I sit there and say, you know, if I can help them, pass that along, maybe it will help them. And if it did, that’s great. If it didn’t, it didn’t make any difference, he won a golf tournament, either way.”
Nicklaus was extremely focused when he was playing but the point that he’s missing is the fact that he always played with a smile on his face and interacted with the galleries after he had finished his round.
There’s a reason why Nicklaus was so popular during his playing days and that certainly wasn’t because he carried himself like Cantlay in any way shape or form!
That’s not to say that Cantlay’s way of focusing is wrong, it just means that he will never endear himself to the fans as much as other players do.
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