JIMMY ROBERTS: To get things started here, we'll welcome our first guest who is right in the middle of it. He has eight PGA TOUR wins, including that BMW Championship in 2021 on his way to the FedExCup title. He also won the BMW Championship the next year in Delaware. Please welcome via Zoom Patrick Cantlay. Patrick?
PATRICK CANTLAY: Hi, Jimmy. Thanks very much for having me.
Q. Let's start with that 2021 championship. I know you've been a part of a lot of heart pounding things in the game of golf, but that was just so crazy. I'm standing here just above the golf course, and I have this vivid recollection of you guys, you and Bryson DeChambeau, marching up and down and up and down. The light was fading. I know in the broadcast truck we were thinking I don't know if we're going to get this in. Aside from winning, what are your primary recollections of that week and certainly that day?
A. The first thing when I think about that week was just how much the fans were into it. Just from Thursday on, they were just so invested, and there were so many people out there.
The way the build-out was for that tournament, those holes that we kept going back and forth on were like little amphitheaters. It felt like the people were right on top of us, and the environment all week was just spectacular.
Q. I mentioned it before, and obviously major championships, Ryder Cup, so many things that get the heart pounding, you've been right in the middle of. Does it feel different when you get into a situation like that? I know I'm thinking back on it right now, and just before you guys were about to pull the club back on every single shot, I remember I was nervous. Does it feel any different to you when you're in the middle of something like that?
PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, definitely there's some more adrenaline, and the environment, I think, feeds into it as well. Those holes both have water, so they're a little more exciting coming down the stretch.
We had a battle really all day. I think we were separated a little bit from the rest of the field, and it felt like we were trying to make as many birdies as we could.
It was a really fun golf course to play all week, challenging. That week we got a lot of soft conditions, so it was a lot of birdies. It was a fun week. I thought the course stood up really well for a golf tournament, and the fans came out and they were fantastic.
Q. You talk about a lot of birdies. You won that tournament at 27-under par, which for anybody who has played this golf course, I think that's hard to imagine. There have been some changes here. It's now going to play to a par 70. There are new grasses. They put in the PrecisionAire. I think it's entirely possible that even in the typical heat of August in this area, it could play firm and fast. What are you expecting?
PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, I've heard they've made some changes to the golf course, and I think this time of year it really all depends what kind of weather we get. If it rains a lot and there's not a lot of wind, it will play easier. If it gets firm and fast conditions, a golf course like Caves Valley could be extremely difficult.
Especially now hearing -- this is the first time I've heard it's moved to a par 70. You get a long golf course and make it par 70, it's most likely going to be difficult.
Q. There's so many things about this BMW Championship that make it extraordinary. It's the oldest non-major professional golf event in the United States, dating all the way back to 1899, but one of the other things, and we mentioned it before, is the support of the Evans Scholars Foundation. You have forged a great partnership with your caddie, Joe LaCava, who's a Hall of Famer himself. Can you talk a little bit about the dynamic of a professional golfer and a caddie? Certainly your relationship with Joe.
PATRICK CANTLAY: When I was living in California right after I turned professional, I got pretty close with Fred Couples. So we would play golf almost every Sunday in a little game down in Newport Beach at his home club, and I heard all sorts of stories about Joe. I started working with Joe a few years ago, and he's just fantastic.
He shows up to work every day, got the same attitude no matter what. He's the same on the 1st tee on Thursday or coming down the stretch on Sunday, and he's just rock solid. He's seen every situation there could be in golf, and he's got plenty of good stories out there. If you prod him a little bit, he'll divulge some pretty good ones.
Q. There's some great stories about Joe, I could speak to that. The PGA TOUR is responsible for literally billions of dollars in charitable giving. I just mentioned it a moment ago. The whole idea that this tournament is unique because of its connection with the Western Golf Association and the Evans Scholars Foundation, I just wonder -- I know you're hard at work out there, you've got your eyes trained on what you do for a living, but this organization has sent literally thousands of young caddies to college. I just wonder your thoughts on that for a moment.
PATRICK CANTLAY: I think it's a testament to the culture of golf. We spend so much time worrying about the competition, like you say, and worrying about the tournament and maybe the drama that surrounds that, but there's so much -- there's so many programs and so many people that are better off that are adjacent to golf. The Evans Scholars is just one of many examples. They do a fantastic job.
We use the Evans Scholars in the Pro-Am on Wednesday, so we get to meet some of those young kids that are headed off to college. I hear so many stories from them about how whoever they've met through golf, through caddieing has opened up different doors for them and made it possible for them to achieve things that maybe they otherwise wouldn't have. I think that's what it's all about. It's fantastic that BMW and Western Golf Association are so committed to that.
Q. Two last things before I let you go. You're something of a pioneer. You struggled with back issues. Never had surgery, but as I understand, I know you had a fracture in your back so that forced you to a certain routine if you wanted to play golf. That's something I think that, if people can't relate to the fact, everyday golfers can't relate to the fact of the way you play, they can certainly relate to the fact that your back hurts. Can you give folks a little bit of a sense of what you have to go through and how long you've been doing this when you get ready to play golf every day?
PATRICK CANTLAY: Fortunately, my back's felt good for a number of years now. So it's not as extensive as it was when I was first coming back to the TOUR in 2017-2018.
My day starts a couple of hours, 2 1/2 hours before a tee time, and I see my physical therapist, then see my trainer in the gym. For me it's all about putting deposits in the bank. I want to do all the preventative things possible to make sure I feel good every day, and that way I don't have to push the panic button when something starts to hurt.
I think, if I can do all the good things all the time as a practice, as a discipline, as a habit, then I don't have to worry about my back hurting because it never really gets in a spot where it can hurt.
We play so much golf so often and practice so hard that we need to make sure we're doing enough preventative things to allow our bodies to do that work every day. It's just something I committed to, like you say, as a result of having some back injuries in the past. Fortunately, I've felt good for a long time now, and by now it's just a habit.
Q. For recreational golfers who don't have the time to spend a couple of hours getting ready to play, if you had one piece of advice in the short run, kind of like the microdose, what would it be for your advice for everyday players?
PATRICK CANTLAY: I would say find any type of routine that works or makes it a little better. Even it's just 5 or 10 minutes of going a little slower and building up, even if it's just hitting 10 or 15 more wedges before you start ripping drivers on the range before you head to the 1st tee, I think anything you can do that makes it a little better, a little easier on yourself to get going, I think that's a good start.
Q. Lastly, I'll get you out of here on this, a little bit of a left turn. I know personally that you like to read a lot. Two questions to send you on your way. What's on your night table now that you're reading, and what's a book that you read recently that had great impact for you?
PATRICK CANTLAY: Well, I've been working my way through all the Dune books, kind of spurred on by the movies. I read -- I'll switch back between fiction and nonfiction. So there's plenty of those books to go around. I think Frank Herbert wrote six of them, so I'm almost through those.
A book that I talk about a lot that really changed the way I think about the world and changed decision-making for me was a book called Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It's a really good read. It's not that long or difficult to read. I think it's a couple hundred pages. It actually changes the way you view the world and changes the way you make decisions.
It talks about a reactive brain, a reactive decision-making process, and a slow thinking process or a deliberative way of thinking. If you are aware a little bit of some of the natural biases that are out there, then if you take those into account or you're able to throw those out, you're able to make a little more rational, objective decision-making, and it helps me kind of in everyday life. I think everybody that reads it could grab a little something from it and make a couple better decisions.
JIMMY ROBERTS: Thinking, Fast and Slow zooming up the charts on Amazon even as we speak.
Patrick, thank you so much for joining us. Best of luck. We look forward to seeing you here at Caves Valley.
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