Patrick Cantlay has achieved quite a few honors throughout his career. The 32-year-old has won on the PGA Tour 8 times and has also been a high-ranking player consistently. While none of them came in 2024, he has still had a respectable year with 12 top-25 finishes, 4 of which were top 10.

But the one thing that the world no. 11 is often criticized for is his slow play. Patrick Cantlay has often been a part of the conversation when other pros have complained about the pace of play in many PGA Tour events.

In April 2023, he was in two different groups across two separate events where the likes of Brooks Koepka and Matt Fitzpatrick accused the bunch ahead of them of slow play. Speaking to Sky Sports, Matt Fitzpatrick said “It’s a disgrace… it’s truly appalling… It’s like hitting your head against a brick wall.” This was directed towards the group that included Patrick Cantlay. This came two weeks after Brooks Koepka had also criticized a group that included Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm for slow play. Koepka said, “The group in front of us was brutally slow.” He further added, “Jon [Rahm] went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting.”

Hearing the criticism about himself, Patrick Cantlay said, “Yeah, I’m definitely slower than average – have been my whole career. I definitely take my time. And when I hit my ball on a bulkhead, I’m definitely going to take my time to make sure I make the right decision and try to get the ball back into the right spot.” Unfortunately, things didn’t end there for Cantlay.

Just a few minutes ago, Matt Fitzpatrick was in the news again for his comments on slow play. @Avoid_TheClap tagged Fitzpatrick as he wrote, “Matt, did you know that the PGAT has only given out TWO slow-play penalties since 1995?” To this, the pro replied, “Says it all 😂 outrageous!”

This was not the first time he reshared a tweet about slow play today. @AdamSchupak tweeted, “The PGA Tour policy board will vote today on a number of changes and Tour vet Lucas Glover has emerged as the most vocal opponent of them. He says it is an insult to his intelligence to hide behind pace of play as the reason for needing to reduce fields.” Fitzpatrick hopped on to the bandwagon by resharing the tweet along with his own comments. The 30-year-old said, “He’s so right, pathetic that pace of play is spoke about every year and nothing ever gets done 😴.”

While Fitzpatrick didn’t exactly take any names, there’s no doubt that it was directed towards players like Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm. The entire situation has caught a lot of attention ever since the new field size policies were proposed to the PGA Tour. Let’s take a look at the proposal to understand it better.

Will new policies affect Patrick Cantlay?

Many events in the PGA Tour were experiencing delays and loss of play due to various weather-related factors. Hence, the PGA Tour recently received a proposal for new policies to help with the issue. The policies suggest that the field size needs to be reduced so that there are fewer instances of delays and loss of plays. With a smaller field size, pros will get ample time to complete rounds and progress to the next stage of the tournament.

However, one major flaw in the new policies is the lack of opportunities for players ranked higher than 100. If implemented in 2026, the exemption list will drop down from the top 125 players to the top 100 players. The number of Korn Ferry Tour and Q-school players will also be reduced, which will drastically reduce the already sparse opportunities available for new players. High-ranked players like Patrick Cantlay will not be affected as they will fall under the exempt list. Fans didn’t react well to the proposal as some suggested that they would have to suffer from watching the same slow players frustrating the flow of play every season.

What is your opinion on this situation? Do you agree with Matt Fitzpatrick and Brooks Koepka blaming slow players like Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm for causing the issue? Let us know in the comments section.