Patrick Cantlay Wins PGA Tour Player of the Year

The former UCLA Bruin was named the tour’s best golfer for the 2020-2021 season.

The accolades continue to trickle in for Patrick Cantlay.

The former UCLA men’s golfer is no stranger to awards – he won the Jack Nicklaus Award for national player of the year and Pac-12 Player of the Year as a college freshman in 2011. Just this summer, Cantlay racked up a handful of wins to earn the FedEx Cup and a spot on the United States Ryder Cup team.

And now, to cap it all off, Cantlay has been named the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year.

Cantlay won four tournaments and placed in the top 15 seven times over the course of the season, both of which marked career highs for the UCLA product. After sitting at No. 14 as recently as last October, Cantlay jumped all the way up to the No. 4 spot in the official world rankings and finished No. 2 on the money leaderboards this season.

Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Harris English and Collin Morikawa were the other finalists for the award.

Harris ranked No. 8 on the money list while the other three joined Cantlay in the top four. Rahm placed first, but there was only a $67,000 gap between him and Cantlay, who had three more wins than Rahm on the season.

Cantlay entered the season with two PGA Tour victories to his name. He doubled that figure in the 2020-2021 season alone, coming away with wins at the 2020 Zozo Championship, 2021 Memorial Tournament, 2021 BMW Championship and 2021 TOUR Championship.

No other player on the tour had more than two tournament wins.

The success didn't exactly follow Cantlay to the majors, however, as he missed the cut at The Masters and The Open, tied for 23rd at the PGA Championship and tied for 15th at the US Open. Back in 2019, Cantlay placed top 10 at The Masters and top three at The PGA, and he has yet to match those finishes since.

This was Cantlay's fourth season competing in all four major championships, although he appeared at The Masters and the US Open as an amateur when he was still attending UCLA a decade ago.

Cantlay will make his next appearance on the links at the 2021 Ryder Cup, which tees off Sept. 24 and goes until Sept. 26.

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