Patrick Cantlay hits out at PGA Tour for distance biased courses and criticizes FedEx Cup Playoffs

FedEx Cup reigning champion Patrick Cantlay has called out the PGA Tour’s choice of courses week-in week-out for being distance biased as he claimed he is surprised events are just about ‘hitting it as far as you possibly can’. 

Despite winning the BMW Championship last year at Caves Valley, what can only be described as a ‘bombers paradise’, Cantlay was critical of playing a similar course this year. 

Cantlay noticed the similarities between this year’s venue, Wilmington Country Club, and Caves Valley in the sense they are both ‘extremely distance biased’. 

‘I don’t think there’s too much strategy to this golf course. I think it’s pretty right in front of you and similar to last year,’ Cantlay said ahead of his title defense, via Golf Week.

‘The venues between last year and this year are actually really similar, I think, in style of golf.

‘I’m so surprised that [the Tour hasn’t] figured it out,’ he added. ‘It just seems like we’re getting more and more of the same bomb-it-as-far-as-you-can golf courses week after week.’

Measuring in at 7,534 yards, the par-71 course features three front nine par-fours that are 490-plus yards, while the two par-fives on the back are more than 600 yards.

Cantlay said he was surprised that the Tour does not choose to play at tighter courses to combat the number of big hitters. 

‘It’s so surprising to me that the golf courses that none of the guys who hit it far, they don’t go to Hilton Head, they don’t go to Colonial, they don’t go to the short, small, dogleggy tree-lined golf courses,’ he said.

‘The way we combat the distance, the way these architects seem to think they want to combat distance is by taking all the trees out and playing it 7,600 yards and put the tees way back and all the par-5s are at 600 yards. I don’t think that makes any sense.

‘I’m surprised every time I come to a golf course where they say it’s recently been redone and then there’s no real shaping of golf shots. It’s just how far can you hit it and grab your driver on every hole and hit it as high and hit it as far as you possibly can. 

‘If you can hit it 315 yards, you’ve taken out all the bunkers, and you’re maybe in the rough, but it’s way better in the rough with a 9- or 8-iron than it is maybe in the fairway with a 5-iron if you were to lay up to the fat part of the fairway before the bunkers.’ 

Cantlay, along with Jon Rahm, was also critical of the FedEx Cup, claiming playoffs are not compatible with golf. 

He said: ‘Well, (the playoff format has) changed so many times I’m not sure anyone has got the perfect formula yet. I’m not sure. It’s hard to do Playoffs in golf. I think we’ve seen that.

‘I’m not really sure. I think there’s got to be smarter people than me that have more experience putting this on than — it seems to get tweaked every year, and I’m not necessarily sure why. We went to the everyone starts at a different score to par a couple years ago. That still feels strange to me.

‘Like I said, Playoffs is obviously a challenge in golf, and I’m not sure anyone has figured it out, the perfect formula yet.’ 

The playoffs format has drawn criticism in the past from prominent players including Cantlay and former World No. 1 Rahm, however this year it packs slightly more of a punch. 

This year’s FedEx Cup events are being held under golf’s black cloud as the PGA Tour continues to battle the threat of LIV Golf. 

The Saudi-backed breakaway has already lured away some of the sport’s top stars with the promise of a new format – and lucrative deals. 

The offer of 54 holes, team competition and no-cut events has already caused the likes of Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka to defect. 

The ongoing civil war led to PGA loyalists holding a crunch meeting Tuesday in Wilmington, Delaware, not far from the site of this week’s BMW Championship. 

The three-and-a-half-hour meeting, led by Tiger Woods, was reportedly aimed at getting PGA Tour players to be of like mind as the fightback against the Saudi-backed rebel event gathers momentum. 

When asked about the sit-down prior to the meeting, Cantlay quipped: ‘Well, I’ve heard Tiger is the new commissioner, right? That’s what everyone has been saying.

‘I’m going to go to the meeting. I’m going to listen to what it’s all about, and I’ll probably have more for you after.’

The meeting was described as ‘good’ by one player, as reported by ESPN, and suggestions will now be raised with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.