Not long ago, Patrick Cantlay was a highly touted collegiate golfer at UCLA with dreams as bright as his game.
Ranked as the best amateur in the world (a title he held for a record 55 weeks), Cantlay was labeled a “can’t miss” player and had his sights set not only on the Tour, but finding the winners circle quickly.
But for as long as it took for him to craft his dream as a young player, fate sure didn’t seem to bat an eye when it dealt that dream a damaging body blow, and then proceeded with an uppercut right to the chin.
His dream was down for the count, but would Cantlay get off the mat?
Considering the tribulations he faced during the last five years, it would have been forgivable if he decided to stay down.
A stress fracture in his L5 vertebrae led to a withdrawal from the 2013 Colonial, and anyone who has played golf long enough knows how critical it is to have a healthy and functional back.
But Cantlay had the antithesis of that as he would go on to he would make just six starts over the next three years on tour, missing the entire 2016 season.
“There’s not a lot of give up in me. I never really thought about giving up,” he said. “I thought maybe there was a chance my back would never feel good enough to play again … but I knew that I’d be able to get to where I wanted to be if I felt healthy. My main goal was just to get 100 percent healthy. I knew if I could get 100 percent healthy, everything else would take care of itself.”
He worked hard to rehabilitate his back and fought with grit and determination to return to the form that had such promise.
But then came the uppercut.
In early 2016, as if he had not been through enough already, tragedy struck.
Around 1 a.m. on a February morning, Patrick Cantlay’s life changed forever. He and his longtime friend and caddie, Chris Roth, were walking down by Woody’s Wharf in Newport beach. Roth, was about ten paces in front of his friend when a hit-and-run driver plowed through the intersection launching Roth through the air.
Cantlay rushed to help his friend but there was nothing left to save. When he got to the body, he knew his friend “wasn’t there anymore.” Chris Roth had died at the age of 24. If they were walking together, Cantlay may have also been hit.
“It still bothers me every day. It changes the way that you see things for a while. Maybe not forever, you get numb to it,” Cantlay said. “For a while, I couldn’t care less about everything. Not just golf. Everything that happened in my life for a couple months didn’t feel important. Nothing felt like it mattered.”
For many, it would’ve been easy to give up after a catastrophe like that, but Cantlay decided to pick himself up off the deck and go forward, using the turmoil that struck his life as fuel to his ever burning fire.
“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.” – Vince Lombardi
And did he ever! Just a few weeks ago, Cantlay, after coming so close in the past, played valiantly and won the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in a playoff after a 5-under 67. And now, after all he’s been through, he will forever be able to call himself a PGA Tour winner. And no one can take that away.
Dream realized.
And one can only wonder whether his friend was on his mind when he sank the final putt. But one thing is for certain, Chris Roth was certainly a part of his journey.
Hardship alters the way people live their lives. You can let it defeat you, or you can become stronger and wiser.
The great Nelson Mandela famously said, “I never lose. I either win or I learn.“
Patrick Cantlay did both.
(Featured photo by Damon Tarver/Cal Sport Media)